'/■ 
 
 
 

 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ENGUSH COLLECTION 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES MORGAN HART 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGUSH 
 
 /\.^\tl3 
 
 \7.\'\V^^ 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 261.D26 
 
 The living writers of tlie South. 
 
 3 1924 022 002 509 
 
Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022002509 
 
THE 
 
 LIVING WRITERS 
 
 THE SOUTH. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES WOOD DAVIDSON, A.M. 
 
 *&>. 
 
 NEW TOEK: 
 
 PARLETON, f UBHSHEp, . yMADISON ^qV&RB, 
 LONDON : S. LOW, SON, & CO. 
 MDCCCLXIX. <k 
 
Bqtered, according lo Act of CoDgrcss, la the year 1869, by 
 
 GEORGE W. GABLETOK, 
 
 In the Olerlc'i Office of the District Court of the Unitod Statei for the Soathern District of New Tork. 
 
 Stereotyped at 
 
 Thk WoMEir'fl Fbintino House. 
 
 Eighth Street and Avenue A, 
 
 New York. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Taia volume contains tlie names of 241 writers, — 166 male and 75 
 feinale. 
 
 Of these, 201 have published books. 
 
 Seyeial of the -writers have written in several departments. Thus 
 Classified, there are : — 
 
 In fiction, 74. 
 
 In verse, 112. 
 
 In poetry, 8. 
 
 In history, — including geography, biography, memoirs, and trav- 
 els,— 63 • 
 
 In theology, 20. 
 
 In science, 15. 
 
 In philology, 6. 
 
 In philosophy, 5. 
 
 In law, 2. 
 
 The aggregate number of volumes is 739. 
 
 The Author's idea has been, to present Southern Writers as they are 
 — not to prove that the South has this or that literature, but only to 
 show wliat literature the South has. 
 
 In carrying out this idea, he has given extracts in many instances. 
 In making these, he has sought to give not so much the best specimens 
 as those that are the most characteristic. Some of these specimens are 
 poor enough, ia all conscience , — some inartistic, of couisa ; and some, 
 it may be, frivolous, — but each in its way and all together have their 
 use in the general design. 
 
 (iii) 
 
iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Some of the writers have talents and character, with correspondiiJjr 
 results, which enable them to stand in the front rank of American 
 Authorship. 
 
 Some have limited abilities. 
 
 And some have none. 
 
 The lists of books, with titles complete and dates of publication 
 given, have been prepared- wiiJi much care; and it is hoped that they 
 will be found valuable. 
 
 Diffioulty was occasionally found in determining the geographical 
 status of a writer; as, when he was bom elsewhere and is resident in 
 the South, or, being a native of the South, he is now absent or resident 
 elsewhere. Ko arbitrary rule seemed satisfactory. With these diffi- 
 culties the Author has done the best he could ; preferring to err in the 
 direction of including, whenever he was unable to get a decision from 
 the writer himself. This occurred in only a few instances. 
 
 Besides the writers included in the volume, there are some that 
 deserve a place; such as, Fadette — the author of the novels Ingemisco 
 and SandoVph HoTwr — and others, who, like her, are not yet willing to 
 drop the transparent mask of a nam de plume and appear in their real 
 names. 
 
 New Yosk, October, 1869. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 Abbey, Richard, 17. 
 
 Abolition, Obstacles to, 391. 
 
 Above the Clouds, 359. 
 
 Abraham Pa|^e, Esq., Life of, 276. 
 
 Absence, 195. 
 
 Adah Storm, 41X. 
 
 Adam. Bede, 622. 
 
 Adams, John, 256. 
 
 Addie, X14. 
 
 Address before the Alumni of die University 
 qf.,Vi^ini£^ 369; before the State Agri- 
 cultural Society, 269 ; by Kennedy, 307. 
 
 Administrations, The Rivf^^ 429. 
 
 Advice to a Young Convert, 323. 
 
 j^gean Winds, 74. 
 
 .^sthetician, Germamr's best, 66. 
 
 Africanization of the South, 271. 
 
 African Slaverj The, 384. 
 
 Agassiz, 25, 401, 535. 
 
 Agathyrsi, 625. 
 
 Age, Follies of the, 54; The Elizabethan, 
 250. 
 
 Agfe, 625. 
 
 Agnes, 154, 238 ; Graham, 156. 
 
 Agricultural Reports, 359 ; Society, 36 ; 
 Southern Journal, 25. 
 
 Aide-de-Camp, The, 345. 
 
 Aiden, 407. 
 
 Ainslie, Robert, 6x0. 
 
 Alabama, The, 502. 
 
 Alamance, 618. 
 
 Albert Hastings, 612. 
 
 Alderiey Tragedy, The, 144. 
 
 Aldrich, i8s, 248, 608. 
 
 Alexander, John D., ig6. 
 
 Alexander's Feast, 52x. 
 
 Alfriend, Frank H,, 18. 
 
 Algebra, Hill's, 257. 
 
 Ahce Afton, 615. 
 
 Allan, William, 19. 
 
 Allard, 80. 
 
 Alleghany, 587. 
 
 Allegory, An, 558. 
 
 Allen, Recollections of Governor, 154. 
 
 All Quiet Along the Potomac, 194, 198. 
 
 Allston, Joseph B., 19. 
 
 AUworth Abbey, 538. 
 
 Alma Perdida, El, 207. 
 
 Alone, 63, 64, 171. 
 
 Alsirat, Arabic, 624. 
 
 Alzire, 471. 
 
 i^bnaranth, The Southern, 58. 
 
 America, History of the Quadnipeds of, 24 ; 
 Kegroes in, 256. 
 
 American Domination, 307 1 Slavery, 359. 
 
 Amnesties, Lecture on, 218. 
 
 Anacreon, 74, 522, 
 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, 485. 
 
 Ancient Dominion, 78. 
 
 Andre, Gerard, 501. 
 
 Andrew, Bishop James O., 22. 
 
 Angela's Christmas, 144. 
 
 Anglais, A bas l', 79. 
 
 Anglo-Americans in the South, 202. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Grammar, 470. 
 
 Animals, Changes in the Colour of, 24. 
 
 Annals of Quodlibet^ 307. 
 
 Anna Young, 176. 
 
 Annie Laune, 266. 
 
 Anthony, Saint, 485. 
 
 Anthropologie, L', 394- 
 
 Antilles, Queen of the, 319. 
 
 Antoinette de Bordelairs, 4x0. 
 
 AntonaidQ, L', 486. 
 
 Aphelia, 1x4. 
 
 Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 369. 
 
 Aphrodite, 95. 
 
 Apollo, 416, 485. 
 
 Apostolical Succession, 17; End of, 17. 
 
 Appeal to the South, A last, 429. 
 
 Appendix, 76. 
 
 Appomattox, 22, 103, xxr^ 279: 
 
 April, 72 ; The Twen^-stxth, 309. 
 
 Archdale, 480. 
 
 Archimedes, 53. 
 
 Ares, 369. 
 
 Areytos, 509, 520. 
 
 Argelander, 625. 
 
 Argent du Diable, L* 501. 
 
 Argument on Close Communion, 2x2. 
 
 Anstotle, 182. 
 
 Armageddon, 30. 
 
 Armand, 472, 474. 
 
 Armenians, 388. 
 
 Armstrong, Robert L., 315. 
 
 Arnault, A. V., 95. 
 
 Arthur's Knights, 459. 
 
 As By Fire, 370. 
 
 Ashby, 571. 
 
 Ashes of Glory, 458 ; of Southern Homes, 
 
 Ashleigh, 175. 
 
 Ashley Cavalry, 23 ; Memoirs of General, 93; 
 
 River, X29. 
 Atalantis, 50S. 
 Athene, 3^. 
 Attainment, 436. 
 At the Ball, 420 ; Theatre, z8a. 
 (V) 
 
VI 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Audubon, So. _ 
 
 Augustine, Sain^ 486. 
 
 Aunt Kitty, 362. 
 
 Aurelia, 63. 
 
 Aurora Leigh, 71. , 
 
 Autobiography of an Actress, 473» 475 : 01 a 
 
 Skeleton, 176. 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 573. 
 Autumnal Rain, 548- 
 Avirett, James B., 23. 
 Avolio, 242. 
 Azile, 117. 
 Aztec Mexico, 3S4, 
 
 Babel of Tongues, 63. 
 Babctt^, 477. 
 Bacchus, 416. 
 
 Bachman, John, 23. . , - - 
 
 Bacon and Greens, 28 ; Miss JuEa, aO. 
 
 Bagby, George W., 27. 
 
 BagofNails, The, 4"- 
 
 Baker, 256. 
 
 Balaklava, Charge a^ 280. 
 
 Baldwin, Samuel D., 30. 
 
 Ball, At the, 420; Mrs. CaroIiDcA., 31. 
 
 Bahn oC Gilead, 45. 
 
 Baltimore Female College, 41, 
 
 Banks, General, 305. 
 
 Baptism, 545 : Evils of Infant, 543 ; Mode 
 of, 388 ; Nature, etc., of, 484* 
 
 Baptismal Demonstrations, 545- 
 
 Baptist Close Communion, 212. 
 
 Barber, Miss Catherine Webb, 33. 
 
 Barbier, Henri Auguste, 95. 
 
 Bards, The, 403. 
 
 Barham, 368 ; Rev. Mr., 157. 
 
 Barnacles, 321. 
 
 Barnwell, 318. 
 
 Barrick, James R., 35. 
 
 Barroll, Benjamin C-, 41. 
 
 Barrow, 256. ' 
 
 Earth, 256. 
 
 Barthelemy, Auguste, 48s. 
 
 Barthurst, Stith, 582. 
 
 Bartley, James Avis, 41. 
 
 Bascom, Bishop, 438. 
 
 Basil the Great, 486. 
 
 Battle-cry of the South, 440 ; Hclds of Vir- 
 ginia, 19, 286 ; Rainbow, 1^6, 568. 
 
 Bayard, 459; Lafe of Cheyaher, 511- 
 
 Bay St. Louis, 91. 
 
 Beaumarchais, 136. 
 
 Beauregard, General, 304 ; Hymne a la Mad- 
 ame, 77. 
 
 Beatrice, 410. 
 
 Beauchampe, 510. 
 
 Beautiful, The, 30, 402 ; Snow, The, 232. 
 
 Beauty, 75. 
 
 Beechenbrook, 431. 
 
 Beechen Tree, 555. 
 
 Beers, Mrs. Ethel, 200, aoi. 
 
 Beginners, Botany for, 414; Chemistry for, 
 414; Geology, 4x4 ; Fhilosophy, 414. 
 
 Beign, Ufiegn, 625. 
 
 Belle Boyd, 236. 
 
 Bellinger, J., 25. 
 
 Bell, The Many-languaged, 69. 
 
 Bembo, 95, 346. 
 
 Bench and Bar of Georgia, 394 ; ©f South 
 Carolina, 394- ., _ 
 
 Ben Eccles, What I Know About, 278. 
 
 Benjamin, Park, 557- 
 
 Bennett, Mrs. Martha H. B., 42. 
 
 Bensalem, 625. 
 
 Benton, Thomas Hart, 256. 
 
 Beranger, 457. 
 
 Berchet, 439. 456. 
 
 Bertha Seely/410 ; the Beauty, 615. 
 
 Bessel, 625. 
 
 Better Moments, 445. 
 
 BeuTah, 371, 582, 622. 
 
 Beverleys, The, 57. 
 
 Bible against Rome, The, 433; Gleanings, 
 117; Rome against the, 423; TVue, The, 
 
 423- 
 Bigby, Mrs. M. C , 42. 
 Bigney, Mark F., 46. 
 Bilinguous Writers, 484. 
 Bill Arp— So called, 531. 
 Billingsgate Brownlow, 181. 
 Billy Ivuns, 27. 
 Bingen on the Rhine, 200. 
 Bingham, William, 50. 
 Black and Whitie, 391 ; Diamonds, 438 ; Flag, 
 
 4^0 ; Flag of H^yne, 249. 
 Blair, Montgomery, 256. 
 Blanchard, Genera^ 177. 
 Blanche, 475, 620. 
 Blanc, Mont, 75. 
 Bland Papers, ITie, 78 ; Colonel Theodoricfc, 
 
 Jr., 78. 
 Bledsoe, Albert Taylor, 51, 181,544. 
 
 Blind Alice, 362, 363. 
 
 Blount, Miss Annie R., 54. 
 
 Blue Ridge Mountains, 56, X09 ; Light Elder, 
 The, 305. 
 
 BluflTm. Russia, Dr., 2x7. 
 
 Boatbiritder's Daughter, The, 411. 
 
 Bohemian, The, 58, 346. 
 
 Boker, 247. 
 
 Bonheur, Rosa, 314. 
 
 Bonnell, J. M., 56. 
 
 Bonner, 176. 
 
 Book of My Lady, 508 ; of the Chapter, 365 ; 
 for Mrs. Murphy's Opera, 8j ; Table, 65. 
 
 Border Beagles, 5x0. 
 
 Borodino, 623. 
 
 Botany for Beginners, 4i4> ^ South Caro- 
 lina, Medical, 430 ; Poptdar, 4x3. 
 
 Boucicault, 474. 
 
 Bowles, Colonel, 92. 
 
 Boyd, Dr. 256. 
 
 Braddon, Miss, X74, 366, 337. 
 
 Bradford, Miss Nora, 311 ; Mr., 308. 
 
 Bradley, Thomas B. M., 1x3. 
 
 Bragg, General, gx, 239. 
 
 Brazil for Southerners, X74 ; Hunting a Home 
 in, 2x3. 
 
 Bremer, Miss, 229. 
 
 Bridal Eve, 538. 
 
 Bride of Llewellyn 538 ; The Italian, 333. 
 
 Bright Memories, 366. 
 
 Brise du Sud, 84 ; m*a parle, 84. 
 
 British Dragoon* The, 411; Philanthropy, 
 
 Bnzeau, Auguste, 485. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ^bchures Politiques.et Philosb[ihIqties, 174. 
 Brock, Miss Sallie A., 56. 
 Broken Engagement, liie, 530. 
 Brossai's Doctiines, 401. 
 Brother Clerks, 575. 
 Brother's Vengeance, The, 410. 
 Brown, 181,516 ; and Jones, 516. 
 Browne, Miss Emma Aiice, 61. 
 Browning-like Poem, 159. 
 Browning, Mrs., 71, 75, 130, 620. 
 Brownings in Florence, The, 329. 
 Brownlow, x8x. 
 Bruce, 256, 409. 
 Bruns, John Dickson, 64, 526. 
 Bryan, Miss Sallie M., 61 ; Mrs. Mary Ed- 
 wards, 71. 
 Buchanan, 253. 
 Buckners, The, 57. 
 Buerger, 456. 
 Buist, Dr., 139. 
 Bull Run Arp, 531. 
 Bulwer, 556 ; fils, 185 ; Lady, 72. 
 Burdsall, Miss, 78. 
 Burglar, The, 411. 
 Burial of Sir John Moore, 195. 
 Burke, 386:-JohnW., 76. 
 Burk, John Dale, 78; Junius, 78. 
 Burns, 66, 376, 456, 556, 6og. 
 Burton, 256, 610. 
 Burtons, The, 57. 
 Burton, Wade, Bachelor, 562. 
 Burr, Aaron, 175. 
 Bushnell, Charles, 621. 
 Bush, Professor, 463. 
 Bust of Dante, 195. 
 
 Busy Moments of an Idle Woman, 94, 313 
 Butler, General, 72, 304 : Hudibras, 456, 605. 
 Butterfly, Song of die, 259. 
 Bynum, Judge, 541. 
 Byrd, English, 582. 
 Byron, 143, 194; 522, 596. 
 Byronic misanthropy, 267. 
 
 Cxsar's Commentaries, 51 ; Head, 339: Tenth 
 
 Legion, 92 ; voice, 221. 
 Cailhe, 250. 
 Cain, Dr. D. J., 431. 
 Caius, Gracchus, 352. 
 Caldwell, Howard H., 76 ; James Fitz- James, 
 
 76; James J., 76, 31s- 
 Calhoun, 181, 327, 329. 
 Callamura, 114. 
 Callaway, Miss, 78. 
 Calongne, Adolphe, 77. 
 Calvin, Life of, 360, 634. 
 Cameo Bracelet, The, 443. 
 Cameron HaU, 121. 
 Campaigns of Forrest, 304 ; of General Scott, 
 
 503- 
 Campbell, 609 ; Charles, 77 ; John Wilson, 77. 
 Cannibals, AU, i8x. 
 Canonge, J. F., 79 ; L. Placide, 79. 
 Canot, Captain, 384. 
 Cardozo, J. N., 85. 
 Carlos, 67. 
 Carl Werner, 511. - 
 Carmagnola, Comte de, 8x, 82. 
 Carlyle^ Thomas, X43, 612. 
 
 Carolina Vultitres, 24. 
 
 Caroline Howard, 298 ; Westerly, 414. 
 
 Carrion Crows, 24. 
 
 Carroll, 481, 517 ; Memoir of, 384. 
 
 Carter, St. Leger L., 191, 419. 
 
 Carthage, 435. 
 
 Cary, on the Slave Trade, 352. 
 
 Casa, 246. 
 
 CasS; 543. 
 
 Cassique of Accabee, 509, 518. 
 
 Cassius-like, 40. 
 
 Castile, Heroes of, 219. 
 
 Castle Dismal, ^09. 
 
 Castles in the Air, 195. 
 
 Catalogues of Plants, 431 ; of Phenogamous 
 
 Plants, 24. 
 Catechism, Presbyterian, 534. 
 Catholicism, Si. 
 Cadiolicity, Evidences of, SAP- 
 Catiline, 51. 
 Caudle's Lectures, 122. 
 Cause and Contrast, 367. 
 Cavalieri, 53. 
 Caxtons, The, 581. 
 Cebes, 602. 
 Celeste, 175. 
 CeUini,_443. 
 Censoria Lictoria, 179. 
 Ceres, 68, 416.. 
 Chalmers, 480. 
 'Chalmette, 96. ■ 
 Chambers, 611. 
 Chamter, 303. 
 Chamisso, 394. 
 Chancellorsville, 286. 
 Chancery Practice of MarylMidi 41. 
 Chandler, Augustus B., 83. 
 Chansons Dechaines, 190. 
 Chapel Hill, 31- 
 Chapman, Dr., 139, 141 ; of Mosbys com-' 
 
 mand, 113. 
 Charge at Balaklava, 280. 
 Charge d' Affaires, 267. 
 Charity, 5S6 ; which does not begin at Home, 
 
 352. 
 Charles, 219 ; Marion, 410 ; Morton, 305. 
 Charleston, Reminiscences of, 85. 
 Charming Creature, The, 338. 
 Charms and Counter Charms, 363. 
 Chastine, 134. 
 Chateaubriand, 4S6, 489. 
 Chateaux en Espagne, 178. 
 Chandron, M., 490. 
 Checos, The, 57. 
 Cheese-making, 360. 
 
 Chelonis, 623. a 
 
 Chemistry, Dictionary of, 414 ; for Beginners, 
 
 414 ; Lectures on, 414 ; Manual of^ 414. 
 Cheraws, History of the Old, 229. 
 Che Sara Sara, g$. 
 Cheves, Langdon, 331. 
 Chevy Chase, 407. 
 Chickahominy Arp, 331. 
 Chicora, 306. 
 Chjide Harold, 194. 
 Children in Heaven, Our, 273. 
 Clutih, xx6. 
 Chirograph of Borridc, 41 ; of Blsf^soe, 54 j 
 
VlU 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 of Mary Walsingham, 599 ; of Mrs. Wilsoiij 
 628 ; of SasSf 499 ; of Young, 634. 
 
 Chisolm, Julian jT, 86. 
 
 Chockcaws, Htstoire des, 491. 
 
 Christ, Grace of, 423. 
 
 Christian Cross, 69 ; Household^ 4x4 : Min- 
 istry, 25 ; Philosophy, 416 ; Priest, 103. 
 
 Christine, 392. 
 
 Christmas Day, 61; Carol, 119; Holly, 552; 
 Hymn, 66 ; Night, 347 ; Poem, A, 300. 
 
 Christopher North, 610. 
 
 Chysostomos, 486. 
 
 Church and Her Enemies, The, 423 ; Gov- 
 ernment, 17 ; Government, Strictures on, 
 17; of England, Origin of, 360; of God, 
 483 ; of the Strangers, 13s ; The True, 361. 
 
 Chute de Sejan, 501. 
 
 Cicero, 602. 
 
 Circassian Bride, 295. 
 
 Circassians of Kabarda, 625. 
 
 City of the Silent^ 509. ^ 
 
 Clack, Mrs. Mana Louise, 88. 
 
 Claiborne, 551 ; John, F. H., 901. 
 
 Claims of the Church of Scotland, 534. 
 
 Clapperton, 256. 
 
 Clara's Poems, 99. 
 
 Claremont, 33. 
 
 Clarke, Mrs. M. B,, 93 ; William, 94. 
 
 Ciarkson, Henry M., 96. 
 
 Classics, The English, 298. 
 
 Clay, 256, 327, 542 ; C. C., 113. 
 
 Clcgg, Baxter, 254. 
 
 Clemens, Jere., 113. 
 
 Clergyman's Wife, The, 475. 
 
 Cleveland, Henry, 98, 540. 
 
 Clinton, Bradshaw, 354. 
 
 Cloistered, 548. 
 
 Cobb, 181. 
 
 Cobra Capello, 442. 
 
 Cocytus, 137. 
 
 Coggcshalt, 6x, 554. 
 
 Colardeau, s8i. 
 
 Cole, Mrs. Clara, 99. 
 
 Coliseum, 329. 
 
 Collections, Carroirs, 482. 
 
 College, Charleston, 64; History of the South 
 Carolina, 3x6; of New Jersey; 77.; The 
 South Carolina, 76 ; Trinity, Dublin, 77 ; 
 Urania, 35 ; William and Mary, 133 ; 
 Yale, 139. 
 
 Collens, T. Wharton, 100. 
 
 Collins, Wilkie, 623. 
 
 Colony of Virginia, 78. 
 
 Colour of Birds, Changes in, 24. 
 
 Comedians, The Virginia, 106. 
 
 Comedy, The Human, 106. 
 
 Coming at last, 391. 
 
 Communion, Open, 484. 
 
 Communists, The, 1S2. 
 
 Comte, loi ; de Carmagnola, 8x, 82 ; de 
 Monte Christo, 81. 
 
 Concealed Treasure, The, 17^. 
 
 Conciliabule, Infernal, Le, 486. 
 
 Condillac, loi. 
 
 Confederacy, Heroism of the,4o2 ;The, 58,102. 
 
 Confederate Array, The, 88, 174 ; Dead, The, 
 X26; Flag of the Ocean, The, 4x0; Notes, 
 ^s ; Spy, Tbd. iso ; States, The, 287. 
 
 Confederes et Federaux, 137 ; X^s Etats, 85. 
 
 Confession of the Blind. Heart, 5x1. 
 
 Confirmation Kxunined, 535. 
 
 Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, 539. 
 
 Congress, International, 340. 
 
 Conquered Banner, The, 490. 
 
 Conquest and Self-Conquest, 363. 
 
 Conspiracy of Catiline, 51, 
 
 Conspirators of New Orleans, 410. 
 
 Conspirator, The, 175. 
 
 Constantino, 624. 
 
 Constantinople, 152. 
 
 Constitutional View of the War, 18, 540, 
 
 Constitution, Republican, 8x. 
 
 Contador,'The, 221. 
 
 Convention of 1776, The Virginia, 220. 
 
 Cooke, John Esten, 105; John R., 105; 
 
 Peter, 77 ; Philip Pendleton, 105, 521. 
 Coots, 411. 
 
 Coquette's Punishment, The, 175. 
 Corday, 443. 
 Cordelia, X89. 
 Corinth, 299. 
 
 Corinthian Stage, 68 ; Style, 354. 
 Cornelia, 355. 
 
 Corrective Church Discipline, 38S. 
 Correlation of Forces, 140. 
 Correspondence, Science of, 465 ; with Bishop 
 
 England, 212 ; with Dr. Wayland, 2x2. 
 Cortes, 508. 
 CoT^mopolis, 506. 
 Cosmopolitan, The, 508. 
 Cos. 2^2. 
 
 Council of Ten, ^6. 
 Counsellor Cousin, 615. 
 Count Julian, 5x0. 
 Country Neighborhood, The, 175 ; Our Coun- 
 
 try^ 4x4 ; The, 506. 
 Cousm Guy, 551 ; Nourma, 399. 
 Cousins, The, 363. 
 Covadonga, The Cavern of^ 473. 
 Cowley, 523. 
 Crab Crossbones, 576. 
 Crag Font, 629. 
 Craik, Rev. Mr., 360. 
 Crain, Miss Emily, xx2. 
 Cranes of Ibycus, 68. 
 Craven County, Historical Sketch of, 5x3 ; Cra-" 
 
 ven quoted, 259. 
 Crawford, J. Marshal], 113, 
 Creed of all Men, 17. 
 Creole Life in Louisiana, 96. 
 Creoles, French, 173, 485. 
 Cresap, Captain, 3S4. 
 Creswell, Mrs. Julia P., 113. 
 Cridavana Meadows, 624. 
 Crimes which the Law does not Reach, 313. 
 Crisis, The Impending, 251, 254. 
 Cromwell, 256. 
 Crosby, igi, 4x9. 
 Cross and Crown, The, 363 ; Dr., 116 : Mrs. 
 
 Jane T. H., 116. 
 Crozier, R. H., 120. 
 
 Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter, 503. 
 Cruse, Mrs. M. A., 113, 121. 
 Cryptogamic Plants of the United States, 430. 
 Grystalfme, 456. 
 Cry to Arms, 440. 
 
IMDMX. 
 
 IX 
 
 Cuba, xz6; Reminiscences of^ 94. 
 
 Cub of the Panther^ 513. 
 
 Currency, The Government and the, 390. 
 
 Cutler, Mrs. Lizzie Petit, 121. 
 
 Cyclopedia of American Literature, 224, 308, 
 
 ^340. 
 
 Cygne, ou Mmgo, Le, 174. 
 
 Cyprian, 486. 
 
 Dabney, Robert L., 18, 123, 
 
 X>agg, J[ohn L., 125. 
 
 Bale, Life of, 90. 
 
 Damastes, 625. 
 
 Damsel of Darien, 511. 
 
 Dana, Charles E., 504 ; Life of Samuel, ia6 ; 
 
 William C, 125. 
 Dance, The, 338.- 
 Daniel, Jc^n M., xo8. 
 Dannelly, Mrs. C. O., 126. 
 Dante, 96. 
 
 D'Arblay, Madame, 474. 
 Dar^n, Miss Clara V., is8. 
 Darhngton, William, 415. 
 Davies, Samuel D., X33. 
 Davis, George L. L., 135 ; Jefferson, 18, 91, 
 
 300, 42p ; Thomas, 36, 569. 
 Day Spring, 375. 
 Dead, 66; of the Georgia Regiment, 290; 
 
 Our, 302. 
 Death, 73 ; by the Wayside, 58S ; of Jackson, 
 
 300; of the Maiden, The, 96; ofTimrod, 58, 
 Debating Society, The, 338. 
 Declaration of Independence, xSi. 
 Deems, Charles F., 135. 
 Defence of Luther, 25 ; of the Whigs, 307 ; of 
 
 Virginia^ Dabney's, i3, 124. 
 Defoe, 516. 
 
 De Immortalitate, 602. 
 De Leon, 58, 434. 
 Deleiy, Charles, 136. 
 Delian, 43. 
 
 De r Isle, Rouget, 195, 439, 
 Delta, 610. 
 
 Dengue, History of, 140. 
 Denham, 256. 
 De Quantitate Anim., 602. 
 De Rohan, 477. 
 De Saussures, TTie, 4x5. 
 Deschamps, Emile, 490. 
 Deserted Wife, The, 537. 
 Design and Duties of the Christian Ministry, 
 
 25. 
 De Soto, 392, 481. 
 Destiny, or Life as it is, 398. 
 Destruction of the City of Columbia, X26. 
 Detected Traitor, The, 41X. 
 De Vane, 268. 
 Devereaux, 93. 
 De Vere, M. Scheie, X38. 
 Dew, 181. 
 
 Diabte, L' Argent du, 501. 
 Diana, 416 ; Vernon, 013. 
 Diary of a Southern Refugee, 361, 
 Dickens, 145. 
 
 Dickson, x8x ; Samuel Henry, 139. 
 Dictionnaire Umversel des Contemporains, 
 
 pox. 
 Dictionary of Chemistry, 4x4. 
 
 Diegarias, 501. 
 Dies Irae, 437. 
 Dieu, Arme par, 85. 
 
 Digestof Decisions of the Supreme CourLs6Q. 
 Dillard, A. W., X42. 
 Dilworth*s Spelling-book, 358. 
 Dimitry, Charles, X43; Charles P., 346; Pro- 
 fessor Alexander, 149, 62X. 
 Dinnies, John C, X50; Mrs. Anna Peyre, 
 
 ISO, 49X. 
 Diogenes, 625, 
 
 Diplomacy of the Revolution, 5^6. 
 Drplomatic History of the Administrations of 
 
 Washington and Adams, 577 ; System of the 
 . "Cnited States, 576. 
 Discarded Daughter, The, 538. 
 Discipline, Church, 388. 
 Discourse, by Kennedy, 307. 
 Discourses of Redemption, 483. 
 Disease with the Microscope, 430, 
 Diutemity, 17. 
 Diversity of Races, 352. 
 Diverj The Youthful, 68. 
 Divinity, Elements of^ 438, 
 Divorce, The, 175. 
 
 Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race, 24. 
 Doctrines, Broussai's, 4x0. 
 Documentary History of South Carolina, 482, 
 Dolce, 623. 
 
 Dolly Ann Grimes, 414. 
 Domination, American, 2x7 ; French, 2x7 ; 
 
 Spanish, 217.. 
 Dominion of Virginia, Ancient, 78. 
 Don Estavan de Gayarre, 221 ; Juan, 509,^ 
 
 519* 
 Donna Florida, 500. 
 Dorsey, Mrs. Sarah A., 154 ; Samuel W., X54; 
 
 Thomas B., 154. 
 Dougherty, 42. 
 Douglas, 543- 
 Downing, Charles W., X70; Mrs. Fanny Mur- 
 
 daugh, 156. 
 Dragon, 69. 
 
 Drake, Rodman, X9X, 4x9. 
 Dream, A Gangese, 26X. 
 Dreaming, 527 ; in the Trenches, 347. 
 Dreams, 143. 
 Dr. Bluff in Russia, 217. 
 Drift-Wood, 1x7. 
 Diyden, 386, 506,. 521, 609. 
 Du Bose, Charles W., X71 ; Mrs. Kate A., 
 
 Du Chaillu, 256. 
 
 Duchess of Sutherland, Letter to .the, 352. 
 
 Duelling, 23. ^ 
 
 Dufour, C>i>rien, 80, X72, 223, 488. 
 
 Dugue, Charles Oscar, 173, 484, 490. 
 
 Duhamel, Epitre a M., 2Sx. 
 
 Duke of die Old Regime, 189. 
 
 Dumas, 80. 
 
 Duncan, 256 ; Adair, 117. 
 
 Dunn, Ballard S., X74. 
 
 Duplex, L., 72. 
 
 Dupont, 456. 
 
 Dupuy, Miss Eliza Ann, 174. 
 
 Duties of Christian Masters, 368. 
 
 Duvall, 58?. 
 
 Duyckmck*s Cycbpedia, 224, 308, 340, 554. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 El Alma Perdida, 207. 
 
 Elder, Charles D., X77; Mrs. Susan B,, 
 177. 
 
 Elders, Presbyterian View of Ruling, 534- 
 
 Elegy, Gray's, 358, 521. ■ ^. . . 
 
 Elements of Medicme, 141; of Divinity, 
 438. 
 
 Elenjay, Miss Louise, 179. 
 
 Eleventh Commandment, 171. 
 
 Elfreide of Guldal, 369. 
 
 Elias, 485. 
 
 Elisha, 485. 
 
 Elizabethan Age, The, 250. 
 
 Ellen Leslie, 363. 
 
 Ellet, Mrs. 329. 
 
 EUie, or the Human Comedy, 106. 
 
 Elliott, 457 ; Bishop, 318. 
 
 Ellis, Thomas C, 154. 
 
 Elloie, 544. 
 
 Emerson, 612 ; Rev. Mr., 504. 
 
 Emigrant, The, 555. 
 
 Emily Chester, 112 ; Lovcl, 613. 
 
 Emma Walton, 175. 
 
 Emmet, Life of Robisrt, 76. 
 
 Employment of Women, 41a, 
 
 Empty Sleeve, The, 28. 
 
 End of Apostolical Succession, 17. 
 
 Enfranchisement of Woman, 352. 
 
 England, Correspondence with Bishop, 2x2 ; 
 under the Stuarts, 415. 
 
 English Classics, The, 298; College, 80; Gram- 
 mar, 12^ ; Poet, 65 ; Scholar, 80 ; The Hu 
 man Voice in, 330. 
 
 Entracte, L% 82. 
 
 Eos, 562. 
 
 Epaminondas, 92. 
 
 Epitre a M. Duhamel, 281. 
 
 Epoptae, 625. 
 
 Epogue, L', 82. 
 
 Equalitarians, The, 182. 
 
 Erebus, 625. 
 
 Esquisses Locales, 172, 488. 
 
 Essais Poetiques, 183. 
 
 Essai sur la Liberte, 136 ; sur les Devoirs de 
 la Royante, 136. 
 
 Essay on Liberty and Slavery, 53. 
 
 Essays and Letters, 367 ; from The Quarterly 
 Review, 257 ; from The Southern Presby- 
 terian Review, 257 ; Hill's, 257 ; on Life, 
 Sleep, Pain, etc., 141 ; on Fadiobgy, 140 
 on Slavery, 141. 
 
 Estcourt, 107. 
 
 Estella, 89. 
 
 Esther, 443 ; Chesney, 129. 
 
 Etats Confederes, 85. 
 
 Ethnological Researches, 401. 
 
 Etudes sur les Passions, 136. 
 
 Euclid, 53. 
 
 Eulogy on Wirt, 307. 
 
 Eureka, Potf s, 464. 
 
 Eutaw, 5x0. 
 
 Evans, Miss Augusta J., 94, 621 ; Miss Mary 
 A., 622. 
 
 Evelyn, 96, 472, 474. 
 
 Evening, 280 ; Visit to the Lines around Pe- 
 tersburg, 133. , , 
 
 Evenings at Donaldson Manor, 363., 
 
 Evidences of Catl)^g!Ucityr540' .^ 
 
 Examination of Edwards on the Will, 52 ; rf 
 Genera and Species, as applicable to the 
 UniQ^ of the Human Race, 24. 
 
 Experiments on Vultures, 24. 
 
 Eye and the Wing, The, 509. 
 
 Facts and Folks, Censoria Lictoria of, 179. 
 
 Faded Flower, 505. 
 
 Fading, X14. 
 
 Failure of Free Society, 181. 
 
 Fairfax, 109. ^ 
 
 Fairies, Looking for, 30. 
 
 Fair Play, 538. 
 
 Fairy Fingers, 475. 
 
 Fallen Pndeji^S. 
 
 Fame, 506. 
 
 Familiar Facts in Botany, 414. 
 
 Family Government, 23 ; Secret^ The, 176 ; 
 
 The Lee, 385. 
 Fanaticism and its Results, 345. 
 Fanny Fielding, 582. 
 Far, 498. 
 
 Farewell, ma 'mie, 145 ; to the Flag, 300. 
 Farrar, C. S., iSo. 
 Fashion, 472, 474. 
 Fatal Error, The, J76 ; Marriage, 538 ; Vow; 
 
 Faoier Abbot;, 511 ; My, 290. 
 
 Faust, Prologue to, 524. 
 
 Fayette, 506. 
 
 Feinale Prose-writers of America, 224 ; Stu- 
 dent, 414. 
 
 Fenelon, 136, 486; on the Education of 
 Daughters, x26. 
 
 Fenwicfc, 108'. 
 
 Ferdinand, 209 ; Count Fathom, 5x6. 
 
 Fielding, 516. 
 
 Fields and Forests, Southern, 431. 
 
 Fievre Jaune, 137. 
 
 Fifty Thousand and Failure, 6x5. 
 
 Filia Ecctesiee, 154. 
 
 Fils de la Nuit, Les* soj. ' 
 
 Fine Arts at the Souui, 1^3 ; Glance at, 415. 
 
 First Lessons in Geography, 381 ; Love, 99 ; 
 
 Year of the War, 428. 
 
 Fishj Freshwater, 24 ; Story, A, 450. 
 
 Fishing and Fishes, 22S. 
 
 Fitzhugh, George, x8o. 
 
 Flaget, Bishop, 539. 
 
 Flag, FareweU to the, 300. 
 
 Flash, Henry Linden, 27, 44, 184, 196, 238, 
 419. 456, 590. 60s. 
 
 Fleurs d'Amerique, 490 ; Sauvages, 485. 
 
 Flodden Field, 407. 
 
 Florence, 175 ; Amott, 363 ; Vane, iii, 294, 
 S19. 5=1. 
 
 Florentine Sketches, 475. 
 
 Florida, 7X, 158. 
 
 Florine de Genlis, 582. 
 
 Florist, The Southern, 470. 
 
 Flowers and Fruits, 375 ; of Hope and Mem- 
 ory, 299, 
 
 Flower, This' Faded, 186. 
 
 Flow Gently, Sweet Afton, 556. 
 
 Folia Autumni, X57, 
 
 Follies of the Agev-54. 
 
 Fontaine, Lamar, 194. 
 
 . Foote, 253 ; Henry S., 20a ; W. H., 203. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XI 
 
 'Forces, Correlation of, 140. 
 
 Ford, Mrs. SalUe Rochester, 203 ; S. H., 203. 
 
 Forecastle Tom, 505. 
 
 Foreign Writers ~bn ;A!mericaj 415. 
 
 Foresh.adowift^s, The, 58. 
 
 F|orest, CEnApaigns of, 304 ; Pilgrims, 47 ; W. 
 S., 204. 
 
 Forgotten, 86. 
 
 For Thee, 49. 
 
 Fort Delaware, 21 ; Pillow, ig6, 440. 
 
 Fortress Monroe, 16S. 
 
 Fortune Hunter, The, 474 ; Seeker, 538. 
 
 Four Years of I'ersonal Observations, 57. 
 
 France et Espagne, 81 ; La Belle, 79. 
 
 Fr^pk Dashmore, 157 ; Gordon, 228. 
 
 Franklini*357.' 
 
 Freeman's Book, Mrs., ^24, 293, 412, 471, 
 587, 629. . - ■' 
 
 Freemasonry, 196, 2^4. 
 
 Freemason's Fireside, Tales fortiie, 34. 
 
 Free Society, Failure of, 181, Trade, 182. 
 
 French, 79, 81, 95,-321, 330/488; Chambers, 
 Address to the, 218 ; Domination, 217; 
 Grammar in, 138; John Hi, 198, 206; Litera- 
 ture, 80!; Mrs. L. Vir^nia, 197, 205, 32S ; 
 People, 81 ; Poems in, 77 ; Quotations, 173 ; 
 Reader, First, 138 ; Reader, Second, 138. 
 
 Fridolin, 69. 
 
 Frisbie, 195, 
 
 Frown Not, 597. 
 
 Fuller, Richard, 212. ■ , 
 
 Furies, 68. ^ ' 
 
 Furmar^ Richard, 212 ; Samuel, 609. 
 
 Gallery, Our Picture, 4^5. ' 
 
 Galzara, 474. , ! 
 
 Gamblers Fatd, Th&, 41*. 
 ' Gatnder Pulling,- The, 338. | 
 
 Gangese Dream, A^ 261. 
 Gap, Minding the, 397. 
 Gaston de St. Elme,*-8i ; Tames Mc F., 215. 
 Gayarre, Charles E. Arthur, 216, 288, 484, 
 
 490. ' ; 
 
 Gay Hill, 197. 
 
 Gazzaniga, 31X. 
 
 Gems of Southern Poetry, 237. 
 
 Genealogy of the Le'e Fainily, 385 ; of the 
 
 Spotswood Family, 78. 
 Genesis to Revelation, 252. 
 General Invitation^ A, 454; L«e and Santa 
 
 Claus, ^o." "■ 
 Genii, Prisoned, 73. • 
 Genius of Goethe, 415. 
 Genus Sciunis, 24. , 
 
 Geography, First Lessons in, 381 ; Manual of, 
 
 381; Physical, 381; 
 Geometry, 52; of Thought, 562. 
 George Eliot, 622; III., 298; Washington 
 
 Bricks, 240. 
 Georgia, Bench and Bar of, 394 ; Scenes, 337. 
 Gerald Gray's Wife, 313. 
 Geraldine Ruthboume,^6i3. 
 German, 96, 350. . .' 
 
 Germany's best ^sthetician, 66. 
 Gettysburg, 24, txk. 
 Ghedino, 246. 
 Gholson, x8i. 
 Gibbes, 48a, 
 
 Gift Book, Mrs. GOman's, 225. 
 
 Gildersleeve, Basil L., 223. 
 
 Gilead, 46 : Balm oiy 45. . 
 
 Gilfillan, 610. ■'-'■'■ ' - , ' 
 
 Gilgen, 625. 
 
 Oilman, Mrs. Caroline H. 224, 298 ; Samuel, 
 224, 298. 
 
 Gilmore, Charles, 415 ; General, 304. 
 
 Gilmor, Harry, 227. 
 
 Glance at the Fine Arts, 415. 
 
 Glare and Gleam, 4x1, 
 
 Glasscock, 1x3. 
 
 Gleanings by the Wayside, 283 ; from Fire- 
 side Fancies, 370. 
 
 Gliddon, George R., 401. 
 
 Glimpses of Europe, X39; of Spain, 593. 
 
 Gnomides, 625. 
 
 Godiva, 6x9. 
 
 God, Law of, 423. - 
 
 Godliness, Vital, 423, 
 
 God save the South,-392. 
 
 God's Hosts, 69 ; Own, X03. 
 
 Gods, Hymiis to the, 4x6. 
 
 Goethe, 33X, 415, 474, 524, 635. 
 
 Going Out and Cpmmg In, 396. 
 
 Golden Censer, 546 ; Christmas, 5x0. 
 
 Goldsmith, 605. 
 
 Gold, The Land of, 254. 
 
 GoHsalvo de Cordova, 1x7, 
 
 Good Night, 265, 
 
 Gothicism, X44. 
 
 Goulding, F. R., 227. 
 
 Goupil's Exposition, 401. 
 
 Govefnmentand the Currency, 390; of India, 
 
 V.'39*V ■ -' ■ 
 
 Gracchus, 355. 
 
 GtacSafld Clara, 363.; of Christ, 423; Sharp, 
 
 X56 : Truman, 203. 
 Graham, 36, 6x, 196. 
 
 Grammar, Anglo-Saxon, 470; English, sx, 
 125 ; French, 138 ; Latin, 51; Outlines of, 
 223. 
 Grand d'Espagne, Un, 81. 
 Gray, 521 ; Jackets, The, 346. 
 Grayson, 506. 
 
 Great Supper not Calvinistical, 325. 
 Greece, a Girl of, 74 ; and Rome, 250. 
 Greek, 602 ; Fancies, 63 ; Slave, The, xS2, 568 ; 
 
 The Convivial, 74. 
 Greene, 195 ; Life of Genera!, sxx. 
 Gregg, Alexander, 228. 
 Gregg's Brigade, 76. 
 Grfcnfeldt, Sir Thomas, 535. 
 Griffith, 293. 
 Grigsby, HugKB., 229. 
 Griselda, 625. 
 
 Griswold, - Miss Carrie, 230; Rufus W., 230, 
 '^^^9> S16, 547- 
 Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, 
 
 509. 
 Gruen, 394. 
 Guerilla,' The, ws. 
 Guernsey, A. H., 20X. 
 Gtiinot, Eugene, 490. 
 Gulf Stream, 382. 
 Guy of Mayne, 548 ; Rivers, 310. 
 Gwyii, Mrs Laura, 235. 
 Gypsy's Prophecy, The, 338. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Hadley, Dr., 139. ' 
 
 Hagood, General, 19. 
 
 Hail Columbia, 195. ^ 
 
 Hair, Changes in the Colour of, 24. 
 
 Halleck, 66. 
 
 Hammond, z8i. 
 
 Hamptons, The, 27. 
 
 HancQpk, Miss S. J.j 236. 
 
 Hand-Book of Masonry, 483, 
 
 Hardinge, Belle Boyd, 236. 
 
 Hardin, James P., iiSi-. 
 
 Harel, 605. 
 
 Hares, Monograph of, 24. 
 
 Harold, 192. 
 
 Harris, Joel Chandler, 200, 236. 
 
 Harry Eluff> 380. 
 
 Hart, 224, 412 : John S., 506. 
 
 Harf s Female Writers, 224. 
 
 Hashish Vision, The, 295. 
 
 Has she any Tin ? 126. 
 
 Hatcher, John E., 239. 
 
 Ha til mi tulidh, 141. 
 
 Haunted Homestead, The, 538. 
 
 Hawkbill Peak, 359. 
 
 Hawthorne, 144. 
 
 Hayne,-PauliH^ 24^, 456. 
 
 Health and Happiness, 367 ; The* 195* S^0> 
 521. 
 
 Heart-Blossoms, .117 ; Drops from Memory's 
 Urn, 614 ; Only a, 425 ; Whispers, S30, 
 
 Heathen Mythology, 158. 
 
 Heine, 331, 594. 
 
 Heister, Major, 541. 
 , Heten, 252, 406; Berkley, 474; Courtnay's 
 Promise, 298 ; Halsey, 5x0 ; Howard, 129. 
 
 Helenus, 202. 
 , Helper, Dxiniel, 251; Hintou Rowan, 8x, 251; 
 Sarah, 251. 
 
 Hemans, Mrs., 61, 610, 
 
 Henderson, Philo, 529. 
 
 Henry, 318, 459 ; Kip, 576 ; St. John, Gentle- 
 man, 107. 
 
 Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee, 629. 
 
 Herbert Hamilton, 615. 
 
 Hemdon, 297. 
 
 Heroic Women of the South, 108. 
 
 HeroUm of the Confederacy, 402. 
 
 Hesper, 258. 
 
 Hewit, 480, 517. 
 
 Hickory Hall, 538 ; Nut Gap, 359. 
 
 Hidden Heart, The, 613. 
 
 Hilarion, 4S6. 
 
 Hill, Daniel H., 257 ; Theo. H., 238, 444. 
 
 HiUiard, H. W., 267. 
 
 Hippocrates, Aphorisms of, 369. 
 
 Hireling and the Slave, The, 506. 
 
 Hi^toire de la Louisiana, 216 ; sous Charles 
 v., 81. 
 
 Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Nor- 
 folk, 204 ; Sketches of North Carolina, 608 ; 
 and Social Sketch of Craven County, 513 ; 
 Sketches of Louisiana, 216 ; ; Society of 
 South Carolina, 479. 
 
 History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, 
 76 ; of Louisiana, 217 ; of Maryland, 135, 
 402 ; of .Nortfe-Carohna, 60S ; of the An- 
 cient Dominion, 78 ; of the Lee Family, 
 385 ; of the Old Cheraws, 229 ; of the Quad- 
 
 rupeds of America, 24 ; of South Carolina, 
 511 ; of the Reformation, 539 ; of the Salz- 
 burg Colony, 54S : of the South Carolina 
 College, 316 ; of the War of Secession, 90, 
 287, 428 ; of the Westminister Divines, 
 534; of Virginia, 287 ; Sinmi^s, 4S2. 
 
 Holcombe, James P., 181, 268 ; William H., 
 P69. 
 
 Holiness, 546. 
 
 Holmesj Ohver W., 141, 573. 
 
 Holt, David, 275 ; John S., 275. 
 
 Home Altar, The, 136 ; Forever and Ever, 
 Z19 ; That I Love, 39^. 
 
 Homer, 221, 340, 5^ ; Heroine o^ 314. 
 
 Homceppathj How I became A, 260. 
 
 Homoebpathic Treatment of Vellpw Fever, 
 273* 
 
 Homoeopathy, Episde^ on, 367 ; Scientific 
 Basis of, 272 ; What is, 271. 
 
 Hooper, 531. 
 
 Hope, James Barron, 279. 
 
 Hopkinson, 195. 
 
 Horace, 6s, 5^6. 605. 
 
 Horae Halcyons^ 965. 
 
 Horse-Shoe Robinson, 307 ; Swap, The;, 338. 
 
 Horwitz, OrviUe, 285, 
 
 Hosackj Dr., 400, 
 
 Hotchkiss, Jed., 19, 286, 
 
 Hours With My Pupils, 414. 
 
 Hour When We Shall Meet Again, 711 72. 
 
 Household of Bouverie, 603 ; Mysteries 122 ; 
 The Christian, 414. 
 
 House in Balfour Street, The, 144. 
 
 Howard, 224, 246; Henry J., 529; Pinckney, 
 S55 : Samuel, 224. 
 
 Howell, Dr., 545. 
 
 How I became a Homioeppath, 269. 
 
 Howison, Allen, 287 ; R^>ert R.., s86 ; Sam- 
 uel, 287 ; Family, 28^. < 
 
 Howitt, Mary, 489; 
 
 Huber, Charles W., 291. 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 80, 95, 234, 
 
 Huguenot Exile, The, 175 ; The, 175 ; The 
 Huguenots, 173, 
 
 Hulse, Isaac, 363. 
 
 Humanics, loi. 
 
 Human Process, 271. 
 
 Humming Bird, The 225. 
 
 Hungerford, James, 288. 
 
 Huntj Cornelius £.« 288. 
 
 Hunung a Home in Brazil, 215, 
 
 Husbands and Homes, 552. 
 
 Husks, 532. 
 
 Hygiene, 367. 
 
 Hymn Book, A, 344 ; Christinas, ^^. 
 
 Hymns sur Madame Beauregar4, 77, 
 
 Hymns, 126; to the GodSj 416. 
 
 Hypatia, 252. 
 
 Ibycus, 68. 
 
 Icabod, 46. 
 
 Ida Norman, 414. 
 
 Idle Moments of a Busy Woman. 04. 
 
 Ideal, The,.4o6. 
 
 I Have Seen This Place Before, 600. 
 
 Iliad, The, 70, 506. 
 
 I'm a Good Old Rebel, 449. 
 
 Imogen, 632. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XUl 
 
 Impending Crisis of the South, 251, 254. 
 
 Inconnue, L', 205. 
 
 Independence, Declaration of, 3^9. 
 
 India, Government of, 391. 
 
 Indian Chamber, The, 600. 
 
 ^^ez,_€22. 
 
 Infinitesimal Method^ 5a. 
 
 Ingoldsby Legends, 157, 449, 
 
 In Love, 561. 
 
 In Memoriam, xix, 200. 
 
 Institutions Americaines, 8x, 
 
 Insurance, Life, 401. 
 
 'International Congress, 340, 
 
 Introduction and Propagation of Fresh Water 
 Fish, 316 ; to Physiology, 316 ; to the His- 
 tory of the Colony and Ancient Dominion 
 of Virginia, 78. 
 
 In Vinculis, 304. 
 
 Ion, so6i 
 
 Irene Huntingdon, 623. 
 
 Irish Patriot, The, 76. 
 
 Irving, 308, 327, 329. 
 
 Isabel, 473. 
 
 Isaiah, 524. 
 
 Isle of the Long-Ago, The, 528. 
 
 ItsfHan, 95, 321, 330; Bride, The, 333; Gal- 
 lantry, 176. 
 
 Italy, Farewell to, 329. 
 
 Ivor, Knight, 462. 
 
 Ivy Leaves &om the Old Homestead, 366. 
 
 I Wish, 206. 
 - £ztalilxo, 206. 
 
 Jacket of Gray, 31. 
 Tack Hopelon, 580. 
 Jackson, Death of, 300 ; Henry, 289 ; Henry 
 
 R., 289; Life of Thomas J., 108, 123, 346; 
 
 President Andrew, 427; Thomas J., 19, 
 
 286, 290, 305, 446, 459. 
 James, George P. R„ 2S0; I., 535; I. of 
 
 Scotland, 287. 
 Jamie, Jean to, 130. 
 Jane Eyre, 522. ' 
 Jean Paul, 118, 331 ; to Jamie, 130. 
 Jefferson, 181, 256, 541 ; Life of, 429, 438 ; 
 
 Youth of, 106. 
 Jeffrey, Mrs. Rosa Vertner, 292. 
 Jehovah, 65 ; Jireh, 423. 
 Jennie, 15&, 372. 
 Jenny Woodbme, 54. 
 Jephtha's Daughter, 562. 
 Jerome, 486. 
 Jerrold, 158. 
 
 Jarvey, Mrs. Caroline H. G., 298, 
 Jessie Graham, 363. 
 Jesus, Nicodemus With, 402. 
 Jeter, J. B.,312. 
 
 Jewish Race, Physical History of the, 400. 
 Jews, The, 143. 
 Job, 252. 
 
 John Anderson, 33; Chinaman, 253; 'Pel- 
 ham, 196, 440; Saint, 485; the Baptist, 
 
 406, 485. 
 Johnson, Claude M., 293 ; R. M., 298 ; Rosa 
 
 Vertner, 293. 
 Jolinston-, Memoir of Albert Sidney, 346. 
 Jonathan Wild, 516. 
 Jones, Brown and, 5x6. i 
 
 Tonson, Ben., 609. 
 
 Jordan, F. H., 299; Mrs. Cornelia J. M.. 
 
 299 : Thomas, 304. 
 Joscelyn, 512. 
 Journal, A Mother's, 4x4. 
 Jousters— the Heart and Brain, 3S2, 
 Judea, 406. 
 Ju^rthme War, 51, 
 Juif Errant, Le, 488. 
 Tunkin, Dr., 431. 
 Jussieu, 625. 
 Justice and Fraternity, 352, 
 
 Kamtchatka, 193. 
 
 Kant, 66. 
 
 Karanianian Exile, The, 439. 
 
 Katherine Walton, 508. 
 
 Katie Lyle, 240. 
 
 Kautz, General, 304. 
 
 Kearsarge, The, 502. 
 
 Keiley, Anthony M., 304. 
 
 Kennedy, J. Ldand, 306 ; John P., 307, 
 
 Kenny, 551. 
 
 Ketchum, Mrs. Axmie C., 308. 
 
 Key, 19s. 
 
 Km, 607. 
 
 King, 475 ; Judge, 139 ; Mrs. Sue Fettigni. 
 
 „?4, 313- 
 
 Kinsmen, 510. 
 
 Knights of tiie Valley, Z96, 574. 
 
 Koran, 566. 
 
 Korner, 439. 
 
 Kortum, 456. 
 
 LaBorde, Maximilian, 314. 
 
 Labour, The Right to, ^52. 
 
 Laburnum of Constantme, 624. 
 
 Lacordaire, 485, 486. 
 
 Ladon, 625. 
 
 Lady Clare Vere de Vere, 607 ; of Ashurst, 
 176 ; Lillian, 631 ; of Lodeb, 548 ; of Lyons, 
 206, 472 ; of Shalott, 462, 547 ; of Tala, 
 206 ; of Tartufe, 96 ; the Isle, 538. 
 
 Lafayette, 327. 
 
 Lamartine, 80, 95, 328. 
 
 Lamennais, 489. 
 
 Lampadrome of Life, 625. 
 
 Lander, 256. 
 
 Land We Love, The, 494 ; Where We Were 
 Dreaming, 343. 
 
 Languages Compared, 330 ; Study of, 330. 
 
 La Place, loi. 
 
 Latin, 65, 95, 330, 625 ; Grammar, 51 ; 
 Reader, 223. '■ 
 
 Law of God, The, 423. 
 
 Laws of the Corifederate Congress, 5x9. 
 
 Lays ^ the Palmetto, 509. 
 
 Lazzarini, 246. 
 
 Leather Stockings and Silk, xo^. 
 
 Le Conte, Joseph, 324. 
 
 Lecture on Physiology, 65. 
 
 Lectures by Nott, 400 ; by Simms, 5x2 ; on 
 Botany, 414 : on Botany, Familiar, 4x4 ; on 
 Botany, Familiar, Supplement to, 414 ; on 
 Ghoxustiy, 4x4; on 'Natural Philosophy, 
 102; on Prelacy and Presbytery, 534; on 
 the Apostolic Succession, 534. 
 
 Xjee^^9'; and His Lieutenants, 109, 429; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 FamUy, The, 383 ; Life of Jesse, 325 ; Life 
 of 'Robert E„ 346. 
 
 Legend of Catawba, 158 ; of Santa ClauSj 
 66 ; of the Lost Soul, 207 ; of the Table 
 Rock, SIS ; of Tremaine, 460, SSo* 
 
 Legends of the South, 206, 
 
 Leibnitz, S3i 562- 
 
 Leigh, 18^1. 
 
 Leila Cameron, 171. 
 
 Lent of Tears, 44. 
 
 Lenau, 457. 
 
 Leoline and Rosalind, 89* 
 
 Leonard, Miss Agnes, ^2S> 
 
 Leoni di Monoti, 280. 
 
 Lepousse, 80. 
 
 Leroux, 625. 
 
 Lessons on the Eleventh Commandment, 171. 
 
 Lethea and Verona^ ^18. 
 
 Letter on the Diplomatic System of the 
 United States, 576; to the Duchess of 
 Sutherland, 3^2. 
 
 Letters from Elaa Wiildnson, 22s ; Fuller^s, 
 212 ; Literature in, 269 ; on Slavery, 340 ; 
 to Relatives and -Friends, 504, 503 ; and 
 Miscellanies, 179. 
 
 Lettre d' Envoi, 172. 
 
 Le Vert, Henry S., 327 ; Madame Octavia 
 W., 04, 326. 
 
 Levy, Samuel Yates, 333. 
 
 Lexicon of Freemasonry, 363. 
 
 Liberte, Essai sur la, 136. 
 
 Liberty and Slavery, 52. 
 
 Lichtenstein, 236. 
 
 Lieber, 318. 
 
 Life and Genius of Timrod, 63 ; Cruise, The, 
 176 ; Essays on, 141 ; Insurance, 401 ; of 
 Abraham Page, Esquire, 027 ; of Calvin, 
 360, 534 ; of Cnev^ier Bayard, 311 ; of Fran- 
 cis Marion, 311 ; of General Greene, 511 ; 
 of Goethe, 47^ ; of Jefferson, 439, 438 ; of 
 Jefferson Daws, 18, 429 ; of Jesse Lee, 325; 
 of John A. Quitman, 00 ; of John Smith, 
 311 ; of Madame d' Arbfay, 474 ; of Marion,^ 
 287 ; of Morgan, 287 ; of Mrs. SarahNorton, 
 31 ; of Mark M. Fomeroy, 378 ; of Robert 
 E. Lee, 346 ; of Robert Emmet, 76 ; of Sam- 
 uel Dale, 90; of S. Patton, 344; ofThomas 
 Jonathan Jackson, 346 ; of William Wirt, 
 307 ; of w. Patton, 344 ; Scenes from the 
 Gospel History, 228. 
 
 Li^ht and Darkiiess, izi. 
 
 Lilian, 38. 
 
 Lilienthal, 623/ 
 
 Lily, 313 ; and the Totem, The, 311 ; of St. 
 Leonard's, 316, 
 
 I^incoln, Abraham, 236 ; Election o^ 233 : Sim ■ 
 eon, 412. 
 
 L| Inconnue, 203. 
 
 IJnes on a Storm at Sea, 213 ; on Father 
 Tiirgis, 102 ; to an Indian Air, 263. 
 
 Linnaeus, 430. 
 
 Lippard, George, 242. 
 
 Literati of the South, 280. 
 
 Literature in I^etters, 269. 
 
 Little Countess, The, 347 ; Josephine, 228 : 
 Wrekth, The, 225. 
 
 Live Oak, The, 290. 
 
 Livingstone, %^^. 
 
 Livingston's Ciiminal Code, 217- 
 
 Lloyd; 603: ' 
 
 Local Sketches^ 80, 
 
 Locke, joi, 309. 
 
 Lofty and the Lowly, The, goS- „ 
 
 Logan, 384; John, 336; John Henry, 336; 
 Miss Eliza, 333. 
 
 Lola, 630. ... 
 
 London Assurance, 474. 
 
 Lone Sentry, 440, 446. 
 
 Long Ago, The, 528. , 
 
 Longfellow, 321. 
 
 Longstreet, AugustusB., 337, 331 ; Birthplace 
 of, 340. 
 
 Looking for Faines, 26. 
 
 Lost Cause, The, 31, 428; Deeds, 176; Heir- 
 ess, 337 ; Ring, 411 ; Soul, 207. 
 
 Lotus Flowers, 309. 
 
 Louise de Lorraine, 81 ; Peyrault, ij6. 
 
 I^uisiana, Creole Life in, 96; Hisjtoire de la, 
 216 ; Historical Sketch of^ 216 : History of 
 217 ; Its History as a French Colony, 216; 
 Romance of, 217. 
 
 Louisianian in New York, A, 411. 
 
 Love and Principle, 203; and Sorrow, 390; 
 and Wrong, 184.; Beyond Time, 59 ; Letter, 
 A, 334 ; Me, 552. 
 
 Love's Laboiu- Won, 338, 
 
 Lucas, Daniel B., 343." , 
 
 Lucia Dare, 155. 
 
 Luke Hammond, 410. 
 
 Luther, Defence of, 25. 
 
 Luxor, 625. 
 
 Lyndon Eclair, 184, 192. 
 
 Lyon, 181. 
 
 Lyrical and Other Poems, 308. 
 
 Macaria, 372, 623. 
 
 Macanlay, 218, 318, 360. 
 
 Madtiiavelli, 41. 
 
 Mackey, Albert G., 364 ; John, 364. 
 
 Madalme, 38. 
 
 Madame, as You Pass Us by, 607. 
 
 Madonna, 465, 348. 
 
 Magdalen, 446. 
 
 Magnetism and Atmosphere, 381. 
 
 Magnolia Flower of the South, 329. 
 
 Mahomet, 391. 
 
 Maid I Love, The, 187; of Myrtle Vale, 
 615. 
 
 Majds and Matrons of Virginia, 410. 
 
 Maintenon, Madame, .^15. 
 
 Major Jones's Courtship^, 339, ;173 ; Sketches 
 of Travelj^ 574 ;■ Chronicles ot PmeviUe, 574. 
 
 Malony, ai. 
 
 Mammoth Cave, 587. 
 
 Manassas, Battle of, 118. 
 
 Mangan, 37, 439. 
 
 Mankind, Types of, 401. 
 
 Manuj Horace, 256. 
 
 Mannmg, Miss, 366. 
 
 Manual of the Lodge, 364. 
 
 Man, Natural History of, 401 ; Physical His- 
 tory of, 400. 
 
 Mansfield, Batde of, 8g. 
 
 Manual of Chemiafry, 414; Geography, 381; 
 The Art of Prose-Composition, 56; Theol- 
 ogy, 123. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 XV 
 
 Marcellus, 441. 
 
 Mazeo, i8g ; BoKzaiis, 456. 
 
 Margaret, 583. 
 
 Mar^uerite^ 96. 
 
 M^rie de Bemierei 5x1. 
 
 Marina, 4x6. 
 
 Marion Harland, 552. 
 
 -Marion, Life of, 287, 511. 
 
 Marjelen-see, 625. 
 
 Marks, £lia$, 368. 
 
 Marooner*s Island, 2s8. 
 
 Marryatt, 503. 
 
 Mars, 406, 409. 
 
 Marseillaise, 195. 
 
 Marshall, 126 ; Humphrey, 370 ; Miss Nelly, 
 369. ' ■ 
 
 Martin Faber, 508. 
 
 Martin, Mrs. Margarefc M., 375 ; William, 375. 
 
 Martyr, du Coeur, 501 ; Irish Patriot and, 37 ; 
 Patriot, loi. 
 
 Mary, 194 ; Ashly, 576 ; Bunyan, 204 ; of 
 England, 42. 
 
 Maryland, Chancety Practice, 41 ; University 
 of, 88, 367. 
 
 Mason, 449 ; and Dixon's Line, 141 ; Miss 
 Emily v., 58. . 
 
 Masonic Jurisprudence, 365 ; Ritualist, 365. 
 
 Masonry, Cryptic, 363 ; Hand-book qf, 483. 
 
 Massinger, 609. 
 
 Mastef of Beverly, 288 ; William Mitten, 339. 
 
 Masters, Slaves without, i8z. 
 
 Master's Word, 69. 
 
 Mathematics, 51 ; Philosophy .of, 52. 
 
 Matthews, Miss, 299. 
 
 Maud, 189. 
 
 Maudit Passeport, Le, 8x. 
 
 Maury, Alfred, 401 ; Matthew F., 379. 
 
 Maxcy, 3x8. 
 
 Maximilian, 78, 380, 630. 
 
 Maxwell, 370. 
 
 May Beverly, 108. 
 
 Mayer, Brantz, 383 ; Christian, 383. 
 
 McAnally, D. R., 344. 
 
 McCabey James, 345 ; James D. jr., 345 ; Mrs. 
 James D., 346 ; Rev. James D., 345 ; W. 
 Gordon, 347; 
 
 McCord, David J., 351 ; Louisa S., 351, 576. 
 
 McDonalds, The, 410. 
 
 McDowell, Silas, 357. 
 
 McDuffie and Simluns, 3x5. 
 
 McGill, John, 360; 
 
 McGowan's Brigade, 76. 
 
 McGuire, Mrs. John P., 56X. 
 
 Mcintosh, Capt., 361 ; Miss'Maria J., 362. 
 
 McLeod, Alfexander W. , 365 ; Mrs. Geor- 
 giana A. H., 365. 
 
 McMahon, Thomas W., 367, _ 
 
 McSherry, Richard, 367 ; History of Mary- 
 land, 4Q2. 
 
 McTyeire, H. N.,368. 
 
 Mead, Edward C, 385. 
 
 Mechanical Arts, Two Lectures on, 217. 
 
 Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 
 True Origin of, 535. 
 
 Medical Botany of South Carolina, 430J Col- 
 lege -of' South Carolina, 87 ; Properties of 
 C^rptogamic Plants, 430. 
 
 Medicine, Elements of, 141. 
 
 Meigs, J. Aitken, 401. 
 
 Melfichampe, 508. 
 
 Mell, Peter H., 387. 
 
 Memoire of Beaumarchais, 139 ; sur le Fievre 
 Jaune, 137. 
 
 Memoir of Albert Sidnew Johnston, 346 ; of 
 Carroll,, 384 ; of John Dale Burke, 78 ; of 
 Poe, 389 ; of. Sparks, 38s, 
 
 Memoirs of Ashby, 23 ; of Service Afloat, 503. 
 
 Memories, zii. 
 
 Memory of Infancy, 224. 
 
 Mental Philosophy, 479. 
 
 Men.zoni, 246, 
 
 Merchant's Book of Reference, 269. 
 
 Mercury,, 416. 
 
 Merton, 175. 
 
 Mery, 490. 
 
 Meschacebeennes, Les, 490. 
 
 Meta Gray, 363. 
 
 Metastasio, 95. 
 
 Methodism, 375. , 
 
 Mexican Campaign, Sketch of, 367. 
 
 Mexico, 275, 367, 380, 383, 384 ; Gulf of, 47. 
 
 Michael Bonham, 509, 525 ; O'Quills, 576. 
 
 Microscope, 430. 
 
 Middleton, Arthur, 389; Henry, 388. 
 
 Miles^ Geprge H., 391. 
 
 Military Surgery, 88. 
 
 Militia Drill, The, 388. 
 
 Millefmial Republic, 3Q. 
 
 Milter, Governor, 398; John, 61 x ; Stephen 
 H., 3P4; L. T.,398. 
 
 Millevoie, 95. 
 
 Mill on the Floss, 622. 
 
 Milo, 173. ■ 
 
 Mjlton, 246, €09. 
 
 Mimic Life, 475. 
 
 Minding the Gap, 397. 
 
 Minerva, 154. / 
 
 Mingard Serpent, 625. 
 
 Min^o, 174. 
 
 Miniature, To a, 403. 
 
 Minstrel of Elsiftore, 60S. 
 
 Mifit Julep, Origin, of, 157, 
 
 Mirandola, 486. 
 
 Miriam, 552. 
 
 Miscellanies, 23, 540. 
 
 Missing Bnde, 538. 
 
 Mistrust, 399. 
 
 Mitchell, Maria, 4x2. 
 
 Mocking Bird, 27, 191, 417, 4x9. 
 
 Moctroon, The, 410. 
 
 Mode of Baptism, 388. 
 
 Moffet, 256. 
 
 MofFett, Henry, 629. 
 
 Mohun, III, 
 
 Moina, 150, 491. 
 
 Moirae, 625. ' 
 
 Moir, Dr., 610. 
 
 Moise, 84. 
 
 Moll Flaggob, 5x6. 
 
 Monarchy. Overthrow of, 30. 
 
 Monki.sh Legend, A, 242. 
 
 Monody on Pinckney, 5x4. 
 
 Monograph of Hares, 24 ; Monographs of Ge- 
 nus Sciurus, 24. 
 
 Montavas, The, 236. 
 
 Montclair, John W., 394. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Meek, Alexander B., ^43, 191, 084, 386, 403, 
 
 449 ; Geoi^ Henry, 386. 
 Monte Christo, Comte dfe, 81, 
 Montjoy, 113. 
 Moon, John, 106. 
 Moonlight in Spring, 5=0. 
 Moore, 49, 265, 457, 522* SS^ '> Hannah, 485* ; 
 
 Mildred Walker. 77 ; Miss Helen, 287 ; Miss 
 
 MoIIie £., 396. 
 Moosman, 199. 
 Moraiiste, Le Jeune* 490. 
 Moral Philosophy, 479 ; Science, 125. 
 Morals of Goetlie, 415; of Slavery, 512. 
 Mordaunt, 108. 
 
 Morgan and his Men, 204 ; Life of, 287. 
 Morgan's Troops, 117. 
 Morphology, 324. 
 Morph/s Opera, Mrs., 8x. 
 Moiris, 40, 458, 556. 
 Mort de La Salle, 173. 
 Morton. Life of, 25 ; Samuel G. 256. 
 Mosby and his Men^ X13 ; Partisan Life with, 
 
 499- 
 Mosses from a Rolling Stone, 94. 
 Moss-Side, 552. 
 Mother-in-Law, The, 538. 
 Mother's Journal, A, 414 ; Prayer, The, 366. 
 Motherwell, 487. 
 Mountain Haunt of Prayer, 34. 
 Mowatt, James, 471 ; Mrs. Anna C. R., 471. 
 Mozis Addums, 27. 
 Mrs. Desborough's Secret, 89. 
 Mt. Vernon Association, 332, 473. 
 Munchausenism, 253. 
 MurdaueW James, 170 ; John W., 169. 
 Murder Out, 605. 
 Murphy, Mrs. Rosalie Miller, 398. 
 Musings, 280. 
 Mute Singer, The, 475. 
 My Dreams, 351. 
 
 Myers, Hunter John, 106 : Miss, 930. 
 My^tae, 625. 
 My Father, 290 ; Life is like the Summer 
 
 Rose, 519 : Maryland, ^^xq ; Pup&, Hours 
 
 with, 414 ; Wife and Child, 290. 
 Myra, §8. 
 
 Mysteries of Isis, 30. 
 Mysterious Marriage, 17^. 
 Mystery of the Yellow Gables, 562. 
 Mystic Tie.. 365. 
 Mythematics, 30. 
 
 Nadaud, Gustave, 190. 
 
 Nagle, L E., 399. 
 
 Nameless, 157. 
 
 Napoleon, 92 ; Retour de, 501. 
 
 Narcissus, 261, 266* ^ 
 
 Nationality, Separate, 271. 
 
 Nations, The Two, 429. 
 
 Native Vtzginians, 28. 
 
 Nativisme, Qtielques Mots slir le, 137. 
 
 Natural Philosc^hy, Lecturer on, 4x4. 
 
 Nature, 73, 489. - 
 
 Nautilus, Wreck of the, 47. 
 
 Navigation, Treatise on, 380. 
 
 Near the Lake, 458. 
 
 Ned Brace, 388. 
 
 Needs, Woman and her, 35a. 
 
 Nelly Bracken, 309. ... , . 
 
 Negroes, Generally, 256 ; m Amenoa, 256 ; in 
 Negroland, 256. 
 
 Negroland, Negroes in, 256. 
 
 Negro Mania, 352; Slavery, 352; Discus- 
 sions, 180. 
 
 Nellie Norton, 604. 
 
 Nemesis, 444, 552. ' 
 
 Nevermore, 192. 
 
 Nevitte, Charles, le Comte, 534. 
 
 New Jersey, CoUege^of, 77. 
 
 Newton, 53. 
 
 Niagara, 61, 64, 587. 
 
 Nicodemus wiUi Jesus, 402. 
 
 Niccoli, Niccolo, 623. 
 
 Night has Come, 295 ; Vision, A, 394. 
 
 Nil Nisi Bonum, 347. 
 
 Noces Venitiesnnes, 501. 
 
 Nojoque, 8x5-251, 255, 
 
 Nolan, Captain, 281. 
 
 No Name, 624. 
 
 Non Dolet, 437. 
 
 Noon, 2S5. 
 
 Norfolk, Sketches of, 204. 
 
 Norniiandale> 294. 
 
 Norman Maurice, 509, 525. 
 
 Norman*s Pamphlet, 150. 
 
 No Room, X79. 
 
 Norse Ragnarok, 625. 
 
 North Carolina, History of, 608 ; Reader, 618 ; 
 Sketches of, 202, 608. 
 
 Northern Harp, 505. 
 
 Norton, 195 ; Hon. Mrs. 72, 200 ; Life of Mrs. 
 Sarah, 31 ; of the -South, 71 ; Professor, 
 541- 
 
 Not a Hero, 438. 
 
 Not, Abraham, 400 ; and Gliddon's Types, 
 25 ; Josiah Clark, 256, 3x8, 400, 
 
 Nugae, 417. 
 
 Oakland Series, 5sx. 
 
 Oak, The Live, 290. 
 
 Oaths, Lecture on, 2x8. 
 
 Obedience, the Life of MissionB, 535. 
 
 O'Brien, px. 
 
 Observations in the North, 429. 
 
 Obstacles to Abolition, 391. 
 
 Oconee, 290. 
 
 O'Connor, Miss Florence F., 402. 
 
 October, 06, 247. 
 
 Ode, by Hayne, 242 : to Light, 195 ; to Shak- 
 speare, 460 ; to Sleep; to Victory, 460. 
 
 Of Thee, 114. 
 
 Ogden, Samuel, 471. 
 
 Old, and the New, The, 337 ; Arm Chair, 33 ; 
 Carolina, 388 ; Days m the Old Dominion, 
 X06 ; Dominion, 56, 347, 36X ; Grim&s, 195 ; 
 Guard, Napoleon's, 92 ; Mixon, 480 \ Oaken 
 Bucket, 19s, 52X ; Plantation, 288 ; Sanc- 
 tuary', 456 ; Tomb, 598. 
 
 Olympian Power, 221. 
 
 Omar, 566. 
 
 Onderdonkr Henry, 402. 
 
 O'Neall, Judge, 394. 
 
 One Year Ago, 40, 
 
 Only *a Bluah, 578 ; a Dream, 438 r a Heart, 
 425 : a Soldier, 200. 
 
 Open Communion, 484. 
 
XVll 
 
 Optics, Le Conte on, 324. 
 
 Oracles for Youth, 2^-; from the Poets, 225. 
 
 Orange, William 6f, szq. 
 
 Orations by Simms, 5x2. 
 
 Origin of the Church of England, 360 ; of the 
 Rose, 399. 
 
 Orleans, Maid of, 67 ; Theatre, 81, 83. 
 
 Osgood, Mrs., 572. 
 
 Otts, J. M. P., 402. 
 
 Ouesta, 347. 
 
 O. U. M., 62s. 
 
 Our Children in Heaven, 273 ; Country, 4x4 ; 
 Dead, 302 ; Day, 494 ; Faith, the victory, 
 361 ; Picture Gallery, 41s ; Refugee House- 
 hold. 88. 
 
 Outlaw's Bride, The, 176. 
 
 Outliiies of Comparative Philology, X38 ; 
 Grammar, 223. 
 
 Overall, John W., 403, 424. 
 
 Overthrow of Romanism, 30. 
 
 Ovid, 431, 614. 
 
 Owen Meredith, 160, 185, 444, 447, 608. 
 
 Pacific Railway, 381. 
 
 Paddy McGann, 512. 
 
 Padine, 156. 
 
 Pa^anini, 452. 
 
 Paine, Summers on, 546. 
 
 Pain, Essays on, 141. 
 
 Paladins, Last of Lee's, xii. 
 
 Palestine, 407. 
 
 Palmer, 195 ; Benjamin M., 504. 
 
 Palmetto Swamp, 596. 
 
 Pamphlet, I^orman's, 153. 
 
 Papers, The Bland, 78. , , 
 
 Paradise, 40. 
 
 Parallel between Philip and his Father, 2x8. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 256. 
 
 Park, Mungo, 256. 
 
 Parliamentary Practice, 388. 
 
 Parnasse, 487. 
 
 Parodie, A, 200. 
 
 Parsons, X95. 
 
 Parted Family,. 505. 
 
 Partisan. Xife with Mosby, 499 ; Rangers, 
 
 X13 : The, 508. 
 Pascagoulas, The, 221. 
 Pascal, S3. 
 
 Passions, Essai sur les, 136. 
 Pastimes with Xattle Friends, 42. 
 Pastor'js Household, 171. 
 Past, The, 54 
 Pater Anchises, 202. 
 Pathology, 65 ; Essays on, 140. 
 Patriot, Irish, 76. 
 Patriotism, 567. 
 
 Fatton, Life of Samuel, 344 ; William, 344. 
 Peck, William lienry^ 174, 408. 
 Peers, Benjamin O., 506. 
 Pelayo,.473, 510. 
 Pelham, 44. 
 
 Penny Dip, 576 ; Mtss Virginia, 4x2. 
 Pen Portraits, 475. 
 Perfect Through Suffering, xs8. 
 Perry, Benjamin F., 317. 
 Persian Slave, 474. 
 Personnel, of Canonge, 82 ; of Father Ryan, 
 
 494 ; of Mary Walsingham, 599 ; Mrs. War- 
 field, 604 ; Semmes, 502 ; Young, 633. 
 
 Petrarch, 246, 486. 
 
 Pctti|;ru, James L., 314. 
 
 Pfeiffer, Madame Ida, 329. 
 
 Phaidon, 602. 
 
 Phelps, Jfohn, 413 ; Mrs. A. M. L., 4x2. 
 
 Phenogamic Plants, 24. 
 
 Philanthropy, British, 352. 
 
 Philip 11. of Spain, 2x7. 
 
 Philology, Outlines of Comparative, 138. 
 
 Philosopnie Morale, X74. 
 
 Philosophy, and Humanics, xoi ; Mental, 
 479 ; Moral, 479 ; of Mathematics, 52. 
 
 Physical History of Man, 400 ; Geography, 
 38X ; Geography of the Sea, 381. 
 
 Physic, Dr., 400. 
 
 Physiology, Introduction to, 3x6; Lectures 
 on, 65. 
 
 Picket Guard, 200. 
 
 Picture, A, 572; Gallery, Our, 4x5; The, 
 271. 
 
 Pierre Purand, 490. 
 
 Pierson, Life of, 306. 
 
 Pike, Albert, xoo, 416. 
 
 Pilsbury, Charles A., 416. 
 
 Pinckney, 195, 542 ; Charles C, 513, 531, 
 
 Pingue, 625. 
 
 Pintoism, 253. 
 
 Pit and Pendulum, 261. 
 
 Pius IX., 539- 
 
 Plantation, The, 225. 
 
 Planter's Daughter, The, 175, 
 
 Plato, 602. 
 
 Pleasants, J. J., XX3. 
 
 Pleasures of Piety, 2x3. 
 
 Plebeians and Patricians^ 268. 
 
 Pleiades, The, 406. 
 
 Plot, The Villainous, 288. 
 
 Plumer, William S., 422, 
 
 Plutarch, 2x8, 3x8. 
 
 Pluto, 157. ' 
 
 Plutus, 154. 
 
 Poe, 143, 244, =63* 2641 26s. 348, 389* 464> 473. 
 474. 478, 517. 521. 547. SS7. ^H, 62? ; Life 
 and Character of, 568. 
 
 Poems Patriotiques, 486. 
 
 Poems and Prose Sketches, 4x6 ; by Bartley, 
 42 ; Hayne, 242; Henry Ellen, 279 ; Hol- 
 combe, 273 ; Miss Blount, 54 ; Miss Sin- 
 clair, 526 ; Miss Stith, 544 ; Mrs. Creswell, 
 1x4 ; Mrs. Gywnn, 235 ; Mrs. Jordan, 293, 
 Mrs. Murphy, 359 ; Mrs. von Weiss, 547 : 
 Rosa, 293 : Requier, 455 ; Simms, 509, 510 ; 
 Mrs. Townsend, 57^ I Mrs, Tucker, 577 ; 
 Mrs. Whitaker, 611. 
 
 Poesque, The, 241, 245, 264, 267. 
 
 Poesy, 568. 
 
 Poete Mecomiu, 488. 
 
 Poetry of the West, 61, 554 ; of Travelling, 
 225. 
 
 Poets, English, 65 ; of the West, 6x ; Oracles 
 of the, 22s. 
 
 Pdgaud, 'Madame Angela, 599. 
 
 Poisoned Almond, The, 4x1. 
 
 Poisonous Properties of Cryptogamic Plants. 
 430- 
 
 Poitevent, Miss Eliza J., 424. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Political Annals of the United Colony, 480; 
 
 Economy, 181. 
 Politics, School for, 217. 
 Polk, 192 : Flash's, 44 ; Mrs. Bigby's, 43. 
 Pollard, Edward A., 23, 288, 427 ; Richard, 
 
 427. 
 Pomeroy, Life of Mark M., 578- 
 Pomology, 359. 
 Pope, 50G, 609. 
 Porcher, F, P., 429. 
 Positivism, loi. 
 Powell, Dr., 207. 
 Powhattan, Story of, 58. 
 Praed, 569. 
 
 Praise and Principle, 363. 
 Prayer for the South, 494 ; for Peace, 496, 
 
 595 ; Mountain Haunt for, 34. 
 Predestination, 388. 
 Prentice, 61. 
 Prentiss, 455. 
 
 Presbyterian Catechism, ,534. 
 Presbytery and Not Prelacy, 534. 
 Presentiment, Le, 488. 
 Preston, 318; J. T. L., 432; Mrs. Margaret 
 
 J-» I54» 431- 
 Pnoleau, 139. 
 Procrustean Bed, 247. 
 Professor, The, 627. 
 Progress of Freedom, 508. 
 Prose Writers, Hart's 224. 
 Protective Policy, Sophisms of the, 352. 
 Proverbial Philosophy, 603. 
 Pryor, J. P., 304, 
 Psalmist, The, 212, 
 Psalm of Life, 521. 
 Psalms, Studies in, 423. 
 Psyche, 443, 
 
 Push, Mrs. Eliza Lofton, 438. 
 Pulszky, Francis, 40J, 
 Purissima Conception, 95* 
 Pygmalion's Wife, ^53, 
 
 Quadrupeds of America, 24, 
 Queen of the Antilles, 31^. 
 Quetelet, 625. 
 Quichua, 208- 
 Quines, The, 278, 
 Qui perd gagne, 81, 
 Quitman, Lue of, 90, 
 Quodlibet, Annals of, 307. 
 
 Races, Diversity of, 352, 401 ; Jofligenous, 
 
 401. 
 Rachel's What-Not, 150. 
 Radford, Colonel, 196. 
 Rangarok, The Norse, 623, 
 Raids of Morgan, 204. 
 Ralph, Scholarly, 350. 
 Ralston, Thomas N., 438. 
 Ramsay,- 480, 517 ; Mrs. Martha L., 334. 
 Ramsey, The Misses, 504. 
 Ranee, Abbe, 486. 
 Randall, 456 : Henry S., 438 ; James Ryder, 
 
 439- 
 Randolph, Innis, ^(49 ; John, 555. 
 Random Readings, 150. 
 Raven, Foe's, 192, 521. 
 Reade, 256. 
 
 Reader, The North Carolina, 618. 
 
 Readers, Southern, 470. 
 
 Real and Ideal, 394 ; The, 400- ,„ - 
 
 Rebellion, Lectures on the, 218 ; War, ot, 202. 
 
 Recognition in Heaven, 484- 
 
 Recollections of Allen, 154; of a Housekeeper, 
 
 22s ; of a New England Bride, 225 ; of a 
 
 Southern Matron, 225. 
 Red Dwarf, 411. 
 Redemption, Discourses of, 483, 
 Reedy, James, 586. 
 Reformation, Defence of, 25 ; History of the, 
 
 539 : The, 414. 
 Regeneration, 484. 
 Reginald's Revenge, 615. 
 Regulus, 434. : „ . - 
 Religious Persecution, Tale of, 204 ; Poems, 
 
 375. 
 Reminiscences of Charleston, 85 ; of Cuba, 94. 
 Renegade, The, 410. 
 
 Republican Constitution, 8x : Mexico, 384. 
 Requier, Augustus Julian, 4S4» SSo. 
 Resources of Soiithem Fields, 431. 
 Rest, 548. 
 
 Retour de Napoleon, 501. 
 Retribution, 537. 
 Return of Napoleon, 501. 
 Revere, Professor, 139. 
 Revolution, A Tale of the, 25. 
 Reviewers Reviewed, 473. 
 Reynolds, James L., 470. 
 Rhyme of the War, 432. 
 Ribbon, The, 423. 
 Richard Hurdis, 510; Richard IH., 501; 
 
 the Lion Hearted, 407. 
 Richards, 113 ; William C, 339. 
 Richardson, 256. 
 Richmond, 300; During the War, ^7; Fall 
 
 of, 58. 
 Right to Labour, 352. 
 Rill a Motto, 309. 
 
 Rion, James, H., 471 ; Mrs. Mary C, 476. 
 Ristori, Ode a, 77. 
 Ritchie, Mrs. A. C. M., 471 ; William Tous- 
 
 hee, 472. 
 Rivers, R. M., 478 ; William James, 479. 
 Rives, Mrs. William C, 483 ; WiUiam C, 
 
 427. 
 Roanoke, 618. 
 Robbers, 67. 
 
 Robert Harrold, 228. . 
 
 Robertson, Henry, 170. 
 Robinson, .Stuart, 483. 
 Rob of the Howl, 307. 
 Kock of Our Salvation^ 423. 
 Rockwell, W. S., 483. 
 Roderic Harrow, 410. 
 Rodenguez, Miss M. L., 254. 
 Romance of Beauseincourt, 603 ; of Free- 
 masonry, 204 ; of the History of LouisUAaj 
 
 216. 
 Roman Institutes, i8z.. 
 Romanism, Overthrow of, 30. 
 Romantic Sc^ool^So, S2. 
 Rome, Gods of, 4x6. 
 Romish Rite of Confirmation, S3S. 
 Rosalie, 398. 
 Rosa, Poems by, 293. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Rose Allame, 142. 
 Rose Bud, The, 224. 
 Rosecrans,^ General, 204. 
 Rose, Or^n of the, 399 ; The Southern, 224. 
 Rosser, Leonidas, 484. 
 
 Rouquette, Adrian, 173, 484; Francois Do- 
 minique, 484, 490. 
 Roumanian Legation, 594. 
 Rousseau, iBi. 
 Roxana, 613. 
 Ruby's Husband, 55a. 
 Rueitert, 394. 
 Ruined Castle, 615. 
 Rubert, 411. 
 
 Russell Aubrey, 623 ; Russell, X13. 
 Russia, Dr. Blulf in, 217. 
 Russian Gunners, 283 ; Language, 330. 
 Ruth Raymond, 224. 
 Rutledge, 33. 
 Rutland, Duke of, 327. 
 Ryan, Abram J., 235, 491. 
 
 Sabbath, ^o. 
 
 Sa|;e of Smope, 625. 
 
 Sailing Directions, 381. 
 
 Saint and Sinner, 423 ; Beuve, 485. 
 
 Saint's Perseverance, 388. 
 
 Salzburg Colony, History of, 545. 
 
 Sangraal, 625. 
 
 Sans Souci, 370. 
 
 Santa Claus, 3x2. 
 
 Sass, George H., 496. 
 
 Savanes, Les, 485. 
 
 Scarron, 456. 
 
 Scene after a Summer Shower, 195. 
 
 Schiller, 66, 70, 331. 
 
 School for Politics,, 217. 
 
 Schwab, 394. 
 
 Science of My Thematics, 30. 
 
 Scientific Basis of Homoeopathy, 272. 
 
 Scotland, 78 ; James of, 287. 
 
 Scotf, 6og;'Campaigns of General, 503 : John, 
 
 499 ; Sir Walter, 517. 
 Scraps from the Lucky Bag, 380. 
 Scrimzeour, Sir Archibald, 609. ^ 
 Scriptural Views of National Trials, 618. 
 Scr^)ture Catechism, S46- 
 Scriptures Paraphrased, 378. 
 Scylla and Charybdis, 202. 
 Seabury, 181. 
 Sea-Drifts, 366. 
 
 Seasons, Months, and Days, 546. 
 Secession, History of the war of, 90. 
 Second Year of the War, 428. 
 Secret Chamber, The, 176. 
 Sejan, Chute de, 50X. 
 Sejour, Victor, 301. 
 Semme;, Raphael, 502, 
 Sentinel Songs, 235, 493. 
 Separation, The, 175. 
 Serfs of Chateney, 619. 
 Sermon's, by Fuller, 212 ; for Children, 423 ; 
 
 on the Mount, 257 ; to Young Men, 13s- 
 Semirier, 625. 
 
 Service Afloat and Ashore, 503. 
 Seward, 256. , 
 Sexes, The, 275. 
 Shackleford, Judge, 150. 
 
 Shaftsbury, 389. 
 
 Shakespeare, 05,- 66, 249, 460, 464, 609. 
 
 Shamhamphorash, I'almudish, 625. 
 
 Sheep Husbandry, 360, 438, 
 
 Shdly, 265, 457, 521. 
 
 Sheol, 625. 
 
 Sheridan, General, 82. 
 
 Sherman, General, 25. 
 
 Shindler, Mrs. Mary S. B. Dana, 504; 
 Robert D., 504. 
 
 Shipp, Barnard, 506 ; William, 506. 
 
 Shirley, 622. ' 
 
 Shot, S97. 
 
 Sidney, Su: Philip, 246. 
 
 Sigourney, Mrs., 415. 
 
 Silverwood, 432. ' 
 
 Simeon Stylites, 486. 
 
 Simkins, McDuffie and, 3x5. 
 
 Simmias, 602. 
 
 Simms, William Gilmore, 19, 58, X07, i8x, 
 409, 482, 508..' 
 
 Simon Suggs, 339. 
 
 Sinclair, Miss Carrie Bell, 526. 
 
 Singer, The Mute, 475. 
 
 Sinope, The Sage o^ 625. 
 
 Sisters, The; 590. 
 
 Sketch-Book of Meister Karl, 32X. 
 
 Sketches, Local, 80 ; Florentine, 475 ; of 
 Early Catholic Misssions, 540 ; of Norfolk, 
 202 ; of North Carolina, 202 ; of the His- 
 tory of South Carolina, 479 ; of Virginia, 
 202. 
 
 Sky Lark, 521. 
 
 Slain in Battle, 434. 
 
 Slaughter, Philip, 530. 
 
 Slavery, Americaq, 352 ; and Labour, xSo ; 
 and the Mosaic Law, 483 ; Causes of, 39X ; 
 Discussions, x8o ; Essays on, 52, 141 ; Let- 
 ters_ on, 340 ; Negro, 352 ; Negro and 
 White, 352 ; Scripture Argument, 124 ; 
 Suggestions on, 271. 
 
 Slaves Without Masters, 181. 
 
 Slave Trade, Cary on the, 352. 
 
 Sleep, Essays on, 14X ; Ode to, 248. 
 
 Slidell, Mr., 594. 
 
 Sloan, 181. 
 
 Smith, x8x ; Alexander, 247, 284 ; Bishop, 
 2Q3 ; Charles H., 530 ; Life of John, 51 z ; 
 of Mosby's Command, 1x3. 
 
 Smyth, Thomas, 533. 
 
 Socialists, 182. 
 
 Sociology for the South, x8x. 
 
 Socrates, 602. 
 
 Solace for Bereaved Parents, 535. 
 
 Solitude avec Dieu, 486. 
 
 Solomon, 232. 
 
 Somnus, 4x6. 
 
 Song, of the Butterfly, 259 ; of the South, 343. 
 
 Songs of the South, 509, 524. 
 
 Sonnet, The, 246. 
 
 Sonnets and Other Poems, 242. 
 
 Sonnetteers, 246. 
 
 Sophisms of the Protective Policy, 352. 
 
 Soule Female College, 31. 
 
 South, Africanization of the, 27X ; Carolina 
 Bench and Bar, 394 ; Carolina, in the Rev- 
 olution, 5XX ; Carolina, Geology of, 5x1 ; 
 Carolina, History of, 5xx ; Carolina CoUege, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 76 ; Carolina, Medical Botai^ pC 43° "• '^^^- 
 
 tor, 605 ; Heroic Women -of -the, 108; Le- 
 gends of the, 206; Literati of the, 280; 
 
 Sociology for the* iSi ; Songs, 454- 
 Southern Amaranth, 58; Christian, 306; Harp, 
 
 504 : History of the War, ^28 ; Passages 
 
 and Pictures, 509 ; Podtry, Gems of, 236 ; 
 
 Spy, 429. 
 Southerners, Home for, 174. 
 Southland Writers, 551. 
 Southward Ho ! 511. 
 
 Southworth, Mrs. E. D. E. N., 72, 174, 535. 
 Souvenir de Kentucky, 486. 
 Souvenirs of Distinguished People, 329 ; of 
 
 the War, 330 ; of Travel, 328. 
 Spain, Castles in, 178; Glimpses of, 59s: 
 
 Philip n. of, 217. 
 Spanish, 95. 330; Domination, 217; Eule, 
 
 45S ; Mexico, 217. 
 Sparks, Memoir 01, 385. 
 Speak to Her Tenderly, 579. 
 Speeches and Addresses, 268 ; of Emmet, 76, 
 Speed, Joseph J., 438. 
 Speke, 256. 
 
 Spencer, 246 ; Herbert, 101. 
 Spiritual Philosophy of African Slavery, 271. 
 Splendida Vitia, 317, 371. 
 Spotswood Family, 78. 
 Sprague's Shakespeare Ode, 65. 
 Spring-Buds, 615. 
 Spy, The Confederate, 121 ; The Southern, 
 
 429. 
 Stab in the Dark, 411. 
 Stack Arms, 21. 
 Stage, Eight Years on the, 473. 
 Standard Bearer, Our, 145. 
 Stanzas, by Cooke^ xzx. 
 Star Brethren, 513. 
 Stark, A. B., 118. 
 Stars of the Crowd, 122. 
 Star Spangled Banner, 195. 
 St. Ceran, 80. 
 St. Cyran, Tullius, 484. 
 Stella's Stepmother, 615. 
 Stelle J. Parish, 604. 
 St. Elmo, 371, 626. 
 Stephen, 44. 
 Stephens, Alexander H., 540 ; in Public and 
 
 Private, 98, 540 ; Constitutional View of, j8. 
 Stewart, General, 239. 
 Stith, William, 582 ; Zoda G., 544. 
 Stoddard, 63, 185. 
 Stone Apples, 444; Mason, 411; Stonewall 
 
 Jackson's \^ay, 303. 
 Stories for Children, 225. 
 Storm, ^94 ; at Sea, Lines on, 2x3. 
 Story of Lethea and Verona, 318 ; of the Pow- 
 
 hattan, 58. 
 Stowe, Mrsl Harriet B., 329. 
 St. Petersburg, 389. 
 Stranger's Stratagem, 614. 
 Stray Xeaves from the Book of Nature, 138 ; 
 
 Waifs, 399. 
 Strictures on Church Government, 17 ; on 
 
 HoweU's Evils, 456. 
 Stringfellow, 181. 
 Strobel, Philip, 545' 
 Struve, 625. 
 
 St. Twelmo, &5, 627. 
 
 Stuart, 106, 569. 
 
 Smarts, England under the, 4iS- 
 
 Studies in E^gli^, 138; in the Book of Psalms, 
 
 423- 
 Study of Languages, 330, 
 Sud, Brise du, 83. 
 Sue, 488. 
 
 Suffrage, Universal, 391. 
 Suggestions on Slavery, 271. 
 Summer Rose, 195, mi ; Studies, Three, 285, 
 Summers, Thomas O., 545. 
 Sumter, The, 502. 
 Sunbeams and Shadows, 365. 
 Sunday Revery, A, 444 ; School Speaker, 
 
 546 : School Manual, 344 ; School Teacher, 
 
 54ti. 
 Sunny Bank, 552.^ 
 Sunset, 261 ; Musin.^s, i€8. 
 Supplice de Maximilian, 77. 
 Surry of Eagle's Nest, 107. 
 Sutherland, Letter to the Duchess ol^ 452. 
 Swain, David L., 358. 
 Swallow Barn, 307, 
 Swedenborg, 465. 
 Sword and Distaff, 5x0; of Hany Lee, 347; 
 
 of Robert Lee, 495. 
 Sylvia's World, 313. 
 Symbolism of Freemasonry, 365. 
 
 Table Rock, 359, 515. 
 
 Ta-^ah-jute, 384. 
 
 Takmg a Snooze, 263. 
 
 Tala, Lady of, 206. 
 
 Tales, and Ballads, 225 ; and Souvenirs, 483; 
 
 for the Freemason's Fireside, 34. ' 
 Talks, Pleasant and Profitable, 546. 
 Talley, Miss, 462, 547. 
 Talleyrand, 605. 
 Tanltaeuser, 133. 
 Tardy, Mrs. ^fa^y T., 551. 
 Taylor, Benjamin F., 529 ; General, 91 J 
 
 George B., 551 ; Jeremy, 605. 
 Tell, 67. 
 
 Temptation of Venus, 242. 
 Tenella, 94. 
 
 Tennyson, 65, iii, 193, 247, 248, 263, 462. 
 Tenth Legion of Cxsar, 92. , 
 Teraphim of the East, 625. 
 Terhume, E. P., 552; Mrs. Mary V., 552. 
 Terry, General, 300. 
 Teufelsdrockh, 625. 
 Texas and the Texans, 202. 
 Text-Book of Masonic Jurisprudence, 365. 
 Tezcucos, The, 206. 
 Thanksgiving, 374. 
 Theatre as a School, 534. 
 Thebaidc/ La, 485. 
 Then and Now, 129. 
 Theodicy, 52. 
 Theology, Manual of, 125. 
 Thetjry of the Thertnal Zone, 339; versus 
 
 Practice, 552. 
 Therapeutics, Essays on, X40. 
 There's Life in the Old Land Yet, 440, 
 Thermal Zone, Theory of, 35Q. 
 Thersites, 342. 
 Tliiuc and Mine, 366. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 txx 
 
 Thomas, 195; Frederick W., ^54. , 
 Thompson, 196, 35^; James Maurice, s:, . 
 John R., 567 ; William Theodore, 531. S73> 
 
 Thorn Fruit, 319. 
 
 Thomwell, 181, 318, 375. 
 
 Thoughts Worth Remembering, 423. 
 
 Three Beauties, 538. 
 
 Three Golden Links, 34 ; Summer Studies, 
 
 285. 
 Ticknorj F. O., 196, 574. 
 Tiger Lilies, 321. 
 Time, 74 ; Tongue of, 72. 
 Timrod, Henry, . 130, 230, 238, 444, 456 
 
 Death of, 58 ; Life and Genius of, 65. 
 Tiny Blue Shoe, 411. 
 'Tis said that Absence Conquers Love, 519, 
 
 To a Lyre, 522 ; a Miniature, 403 ; the IVIock- 
 ingBird, 417 ; Seem and to Ce, 373; whom, 
 231. 
 
 Toggenburg, 69. 
 
 Tom, 28. 
 
 Torquemada, 625. 
 
 TownseAd, Mrs. Gideon, 575, 
 
 Trafalgar, 459. 
 
 Tragedy, The Alderley, 144. 
 
 Transatlantic Tourist, A, 126. 
 
 Transylvania University, 116. 
 
 TraveUing, Poetry of, 225. 
 
 Trescot, William Henry, S76» 
 
 Trials and Triumphs, 175. 
 
 Tricolor, The, 508. 
 
 Trilogy, Bachman's, 25. 
 
 T^ity QbUege,.D.ublin, 77. 
 
 Truth and justice, 402. 
 
 Tucker, Beverly, 427 ; Judge, 78, 403 ; Mrs. 
 Mary's., 577. 
 
 Tupper, 523, 602 ; The Tupperesque, 523. 
 
 Turgis, Father, 103. 
 
 Turkey Buzzard, 24. 
 
 Turner of Mosby*^ Men, 113 ; William Wil- 
 berforce, 580. 
 
 Turn-out, The, 338. 
 
 Tuscany, A Tale of, 294. 
 
 Tusau]an£ Disputattones, 602. 
 
 Twilight, 560 ; Musings, 230. 
 
 Twin Roses, 475. 
 
 Two Hundred Bales,, 320 ; Lives, 363 ; Shad- 
 ows at th^ window, 371 ; Sist«rs,.53S. 
 
 Types of Mankind, 25, 401. 
 
 Tyrtaeus, 439. 
 
 I711oa,.s2x. 
 ^ Under the Violets, 634. 
 
 Undying One, The, 71. 
 
 United States in Prophecy, 30. 
 
 Unity of the Human Race, 535. 
 
 Universal Suffrage, ^91. 
 
 University of Louisiana, 102 ; of M^uyland, 
 88, 367; of North Carolina, 617 ; of South 
 Carolina, 3x6 ; Transylvania, xx6 ; of Vir- 
 ginia, SI, 56, 105. 
 
 Unwedded Wife, The, 615. 
 
 Upshur, Miss Mary J. S., 582 ; William 
 Stith, 582. 
 
 Urania CoDege, 35. 
 
 Uranus, 406. 
 
 Ursa Major, 195. | 
 
 Valdez, 256. 
 
 Valerie de Mar, 613. 
 
 Vallandighamj 253. 
 
 Valley of Virginia, 106. 
 
 Vanc^ Mrs. Ada Reedy, 585. 
 
 Vandenhoff, 472. 
 
 Van Ness, Eugene, 415, 
 
 Van Nostrand, 19. 
 
 Vanquished, 325. 
 
 Van Voorhis, 575. 
 
 Vapereau, 501. 
 
 Vasconcelos, 511. 
 
 Venus, 416. 
 
 Verhoofd, 369. 
 
 Vernon Grove, 29S. 
 
 Verses oJTd Lifeome, 225. 
 
 Vertner, Mrs., 2^3. 
 
 Vesuvius, Eruption of, 325. 
 
 Victoria, 611. 
 
 Victory, Ode to, 460, 
 
 Vidocq, 41. 
 
 Views and Reviews, 512. 
 
 Vienaud, Henri, 593. 
 
 Village Beauty, The, 243. 
 
 Villette, 622. 
 
 Violet, 363 ; Grafton, 108 ; Lady, 462. 
 
 Violets, z6i. 
 
 Virgil, 20Z, 412, 5^. 
 
 Virginia, 567 ; Ancient Dominion of, 78 ; Bat- 
 tle Fields of, ig, 286; Comedians, 106; 
 Defence of, 124; Glencaire, 410 ; History of, 
 287.; Madison, 57; Norfolk, 582; Sketches 
 of, Z02 ; Theological Seminary, 123 ; Uni- 
 versity of, 5J» 57' 
 
 Vir|;inians of-tne Valley, 574. 
 
 Vision, A, 386; of Cortes, 508; The Hash- 
 ish, 295. 
 
 Vital Godliness, 4x6. 
 
 Viva Italia, 145. 
 
 Vivia, 538. 
 
 Vivians, The, 181, 471. 
 
 Vogl, 394. 
 
 Voice of Years, 352. 
 
 Voltaire, 181, 471, 605. v 
 
 Voltmier, S'S- 
 
 Von Weiss, Mrs. Susan T., 546. 
 
 Vultures, Habits of, 24. 
 
 Wachulla, 171., 
 
 Waddell, Moses, 340. 
 
 Waif, 294. 
 
 Waiting, 424. 
 
 Wallenstein, 67. 
 
 Wallis, S. Teackle, 496, 594. 
 
 Walsingham, Mary, 595, 
 
 Walton, Colonel, 326 ; Miss Octavia, 326, 
 
 Wanderer, The, 601. 
 
 Ward, Jackson & Jones^ 289. 
 
 Ware, 195; Nathaniel A., 600. 
 
 Warfield Elisha, 600; Mrs. Catherine A., 
 600. 
 
 War, First Year of the, 428 ; Between the 
 Stares, Stephens on, 540; Its Causes and 
 Consequences, j8o ; of the Rebellion, 202 ; 
 Poems of the, 299 ; Poetry of the South, 
 19, 512 ; Rhyme of the, 432 ; Second Year 
 of the, 428; Son^s, 195; Southern History 
 of the, 428. 
 
INDEX^ 
 
 Warren, E. W., 604. 
 
 Washington, 27, no, 287, 449 
 
 Watson, Asa R., 36, 604. 
 
 Watson's Apology for the Bible, 546. 
 
 Wayland, Correspondence with Dr., 212. 
 
 Wayside Flowrets, 117. 
 
 Wearing the Gray, io8. 
 
 Webster, 256, 327, 543. 
 
 Wedded Love, 151. 
 
 Weir, 471. 
 
 Welby, Mrs., 280, 572. 
 
 WeUington, 91. 
 
 Well in the Valley, The, 535. 
 
 Welsh. 57. 
 
 We Return no More, 141. 
 
 Westminster, 284 ; Assembly, History of, 
 
 534- 
 West, Poets and Poetry of the, 61. 
 We will Wait, 160, 170. 
 What I Know About Ben Eccles, 278. 
 What is Homaeopathy ? 271. 
 What She Brought Me, 186. 
 Wheeler, John H., 608. 
 When Other Friends are Round Thee, 556. 
 When Stars are in the Quiet Skies, 556. 
 Whigs, Defence of, 307. 
 Whitaker, Daniel K., 611 ; Mrs. Mary S., 
 
 609. 
 White, Miss Julia, 275 ; Terror, 176. 
 Whitman, Walt, 242. 
 Whittington, 4,^5. 
 
 Whittlesley, Miss Sarah J. C, 529* 6i4" 
 Who Can Tell? 184. 
 Whore of Babylon, 30. 
 Who Was It? 457. 
 Why Do 1 Live? 535. 
 Widow's Son, 538. 
 
 Wife, ISO ; and Child, My, 290 ; of Leon, 600. 
 Wife's Victory, 538. 
 Wigwam and the Cabin, 511. 
 Wilberforce, igo, 542. 
 Wilde, Richard Henry, 191, 195, 419, 521. 
 Wilderness, The, 148. 
 Wild Flowers, 488 ; Redbum, 411 ; Western 
 
 Scenes, 399. 
 Wiley, Calvin H., 617. 
 Wilkmson, General, 218. 
 Willard, Mrs. Emma, 412. 
 William and Mary College, 133, 
 William of Orange, 219. 
 
 Williams, Colonel, 24 ; Mrs. Mary Bushnell, 
 
 619; Josiah P., 621. 
 Williamson, W. W., ig6. 
 Willis, N. P., 327. 445- 
 Will o' the Wisp, 325. 
 Willow Cottage, 171. 
 Will's a Widower, 27. 
 Wilson, 256, 582, 610; L. M., 628; Mrs. 
 
 Augusta Evans, 371, 621. 
 Wind and Current Charts, 381. 
 Windle, Miss Mary Jane, 628. 
 Wind Whispers, 206. 
 Wirt, Eulogy on, 307 ; Life of, 307. 
 Wise, 23, 253 ; Henry A., 108, 
 Wolfe, 195. 
 Woman "and Her Needs, 352; an Enigma, 
 
 363 ; Enfranchisement of, 353 ; in America, 
 
 363 ; The Cry of, 210. 
 Woman's Employments, 412 ; Work, ^63. 
 Women of the South, Heroic, 108 ; Literary, 
 
 71, 224, 293, 587. 
 Woodbum, a novel, 294. 
 Woodland, 71. 
 Woodlands, 525. 
 Woodman Spare that Tree, 521. 
 Wood Notes, 94. 
 Woodworth, igs, 531. 
 Words of Truth and Love, 423. 
 Wordsworth, 65, 246, 457, 572. 
 Work, Woman's, 363. 
 World We Live in. The, 381. 
 Wosedale, Mr., igg. 
 Wreath of Eglantine, 343. 
 Wynne, Mrs. EmmaM., 629; V. W., 630. 
 
 Xariifa, 576. 
 
 Vale College, 139. 
 
 Yankee, The Universal, 79. 
 
 Years, The Voice of, 352. 
 
 Yellow Fever, Homoeopathy in, 273. 
 
 Yemassee, The, 510. 
 
 Young, 605; Edward, 630; Men, Sermons 
 
 to, J35 ; Sailor, 505, 
 Youth and Beauty, 75; of Jefferson, 106, 
 Yuste, The Hermit of, 219. 
 
 ZollikofTer, 191, 196, 239, 
 
 Zone, Theory of the Tnennal, 359. 
 
 Zoological Society, 34. 
 
THE 
 
 llVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 RICHARD ABBEY, D.D. 
 
 Dr. Abbey stands prominent among the Methodist clergy 
 of the South. He is the greaj exponent, in that denomina- 
 tion, of the doctrine of apostolic succession, — two of his 
 most important works bearing directly upon that point. His 
 works are, — 
 
 1. Apostolic Succession. A duodecimo, published about fifteen 
 years a,go. ' ' 
 
 2. End of Apostolic Succession. ■ A smaller work, in i8mo., 
 published later. 
 
 3. Baptismal Demonstrations. A large pamphlet, in 8vo., of 
 84 pages. 
 
 4: Church Government. i2mo. 
 
 5. Creed of All Men. i8mo. 
 
 6. Divine Assessment for the Support of the Ministry, i znio. 
 
 7. Ecclesiastical Constitution. 8vo. 
 
 8. Strictures on Church Government. i8mo. 
 
 9. Ecce Ecclesia. lamo. This work appeared recently, and 
 was received with some attention. 
 
 10. Diuternity. This work, also, has been very favourably 
 received by the critics of the author's way of thinking. 
 
 2' (17) 
 
l8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 FRANK H. ALFRIEND. 
 
 This writer made his debut as an author in 1868, by the 
 publication of The Life of Jefferson Davis, which appeared 
 in the northwest, — Cincinnati and Chicago. Previous to this 
 time Mr. Alfriend was known to the literary South as editor of 
 The Southern Literary Messenger, a montMy publiisbEd in 
 Richmond. 
 
 The Life of Jefferson Davis is one of the most striking books 
 published since the war, bearing directly and almost exclusively, 
 as it does, upon that portion of the life of the President of the 
 Confederate States. A critique in The Round Table thus pro- 
 perly characterises the volume, — 
 
 " The book is, while purporting to be a biography, a compre- 
 hensive account, from the extreme Southern standpoint, of the 
 causes and merits of the war ; so that the life of Mr. Davis is 
 rather the nucleus than the substantial subject-matter of the 
 text." 
 
 In this comprehensive aspect the work takes honourable rank 
 beside Dr. Dabne/s Defence of Virginia, and A Constitutional 
 View of the War, by Mr. Stephens. The book, however, like 
 its author, in comparison with those just named, is younger 
 than either of those works, — is more rhetorical in style, less 
 dispassionate and cool, more rash and sweeping in invective, 
 and less mature in its thought ; but, at the same time, it pre- 
 sents telling points in the great issues, discussed with a force 
 of logic and language that may be sought in vain among the 
 pages of either Dr. Dabney or Mr. Stephens. / Upon the mat- 
 ter of this author's extreme attitude, the authority above quoted 
 says, — 
 
 " Mr. Alfriend is a true Southerner, and his picture is painted 
 exclusively with Southern colours. He thinks the North alto- 
 gether culpable, and the South altogether innocent." 
 
 The weakest points in the book are those passages of de- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 19 
 
 clamatory assertion of the author's least self-questioned and 
 most sacredly cherished convictions, — the weakest, especially, 
 when the book is in the hands of foreigners or Northerners, 
 
 WILLIAM ALLAN. 
 
 Colonel Allan was connected with Captain Jed. Hotchkiss in 
 the preparation of a series of guide-books under the general title 
 of The Battle-Fields of Virginia, of which the first volume — 
 Chancellorsville — appeared from the press of D. Van Nostrand 
 of New York, in 1868. This work contains a clear and accu- 
 rate account of the operations of General Lee's Army of North- 
 em Virginia, from the first battle of Fredericksburg, in 1862, 
 until the death of General Jackson, in May, 1863. It is illus- 
 trated with a portrait of General Jackson and five handsome 
 maps of battle operations. 
 
 Colonel Allan was Lieutenant-Colonel and Chief of Ord- 
 nance in the second army-corps, under General Lee. 
 
 JOSEPH BLYTH ALLSTON. 
 
 Captain Allston is a native of Georgetown, South Carolina ; 
 a graduate, with high distinction, in the State College of his 
 native state ; and to-day engaged, I believe, in the practice of 
 law in the city of Baltimore. 
 
 I clip from the War foetry of the South, of Mr. Simms, the 
 following battle-song, called the Charge of Hagood's Brigade, 
 and dated " Weldon Railroad, August 21, 1864," — 
 
 Scarce seven hundred men they stand 
 
 In tattered, rude array, — 
 A remnant of that gallant band 
 Who erstwhile held the sea-girt strand 
 Of Morris' Ide, with iron hand 
 
 'Gainst Yankees' hated sway. 
 
20 LTVINC WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Secessionville their banner claims. 
 
 And Sumter held 'mid smoke and flames. 
 
 And the dark battle on the streams 
 
 Of Pocotaligo ; 
 And Walthall's Junction's hard-earned fight, 
 And Drewry's Bluff's embattled height. 
 Whence, at the gray dawn of the light, 
 
 They rushed upon the foe. 
 
 Tattered and torn those banners now, 
 But not less proud each lofty brow. 
 
 Untaught as yet to yield : 
 With mien unblenched, unfaltering eye. 
 Forward where bombshells shrieking fly. 
 Flecking with smoke the azure sky, 
 
 On Weldon's fated field. 
 
 Sweeps from the woods the bold array. 
 
 Not theirs to falter in the fi-ay, 
 
 No men more sternly trained than they 
 
 To meet their deadly dooB^ : 
 While from a hundred throats agape, 
 A hundred sulphurous flames escape, 
 Round shot, and canister, and grape. 
 
 The thundering cannon's boom ! 
 
 Swift on their flank, with fearful crash 
 Shrapnel and ball commingling ^clash. 
 And bursting shells, with lurid flash, 
 
 Their dazzled sight confound : 
 Trembles the earth beneath their feet, 
 Along their front a rattling sheet 
 Of leaden hail concentric meet. 
 
 And numbers strew the ground. 
 
 On, o'er the dying and the dead, 
 O'er mangled limb and gory head. 
 With martial look, with martial tread, 
 March Hagood's men to bloody bed, 
 
 Honour their sole reward : 
 Himself doth lead their battle-line. 
 
 Himself those banners g\iard. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 21 
 
 They win the height, that gallant few, 
 A fiercer struggle to renew, 
 Resolved as gallant men to do, 
 
 Or sink in glory's shroud : 
 But scarcely gain its stubborn crest. 
 Ere from the ensign's murdered breast 
 An impious hand has dared to wrest 
 
 That banner proud. 
 
 Upon him, He^ood, in thy might ! 
 Flash on thy soul th' imtnortal light 
 Of those brave deeds that blazon bright 
 
 Our Southern Cross. 
 He dies ! Unfurl its folds again. 
 Let it wave proudly o'er the plain; — 
 The dying shall forget their pain. 
 
 Count not their loss. 
 
 Then, rallying to your chieftain's cill. 
 Ploughed through by cannon-shot and ball. 
 Hemmed in, as by a living wall. 
 
 Cleave back your way. 
 Those bannered deeds their souls inspire. 
 Borne amid sheets of forked fire, 
 By the two hundred who retire. 
 
 Of that array. 
 
 Ah, Carolina ! well the tear 
 
 May dew thy cheek ; thy clasped hands rear 
 
 In passion o'er their tombless bier, 
 
 Thy fallen chivalry ! 
 Malony, mirror of the brave, 
 And Sellers lie in glorious grave ; 
 No prouder fate than theirs, who gave 
 
 Their lives for liberty. 
 
 Here is another little poem, also a war-song, but different in 
 style, called Stack Arms, which enjoys the distinction of having 
 been written while the author was a prisoner of war in Fort 
 Delaware, Delaware, upon the occasion of hearing that General 
 
22 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered at Appomattox. 
 I quote entire, — 
 
 I. 
 
 " Stack Arms ! " I've gladly heard the cry 
 
 When, weary with the dusty tread 
 Of marching troops, as night drew nigh 
 
 I sank upon my soldier's bed 
 And calmly slept : the starry dome 
 
 Of heaven's blue arch my canopy, 
 And mingled with my dreams of home 
 
 The thoughts of peace and liberty. 
 
 II. 
 " Stack Ai-ms ! " I've heard it, when the shout 
 Exulting, rang along our line. 
 Of foes hurled back in bloody rout. 
 
 Captured, dispersed ; its tones divine 
 Then came to mine enraptured car, 
 
 Guerdon of duty nobly done, 
 And glistened on my cheek, the tear 
 Of grateful joy for victory won. 
 
 III. 
 " Stack Arms ! " In faltering accents, slow 
 And sad, it creeps from tongue to tongue, 
 A broken, murmuring wail of woe, 
 
 From manly hearts by anguish wnmg : 
 Like victims of a midnight dream. 
 
 We move, we know not how nor why, 
 For life and hope but phantoms seem, 
 And it were a relief — to die. 
 
 JAMES O. ANDREW, D.D. 
 
 Bishop Andrew, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
 is now quite an old man. His residence is Summerfield, Ala- 
 bama. As a writer he is best and most favourably known -by 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 23 
 
 his work on domestic discipline, which is one of the very first in 
 that field. His published books are, — 
 
 1. Family Government. A gpod-sized duodecimo, full of 
 earnestness, piety, and mature thought 
 
 2. Miscellanies. An octavo, that, in literary merit, sustains 
 the reputation of the venerable doctor. 
 
 JAMES B. AVIRETT. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Avirett was chaplain of the Ashby cavalry, 
 and, in conjunction witli some other officers, wrote a life of 
 General Ashby, of Confederate fame, with the following title, — 
 
 The Metnoirs of General Turner Ashby and his Compeers. 
 By Rev. James B. Avirett {CJiaplain Ashby Cavalry) and other 
 officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, C.S.A. Baltimore: 
 Selby &' Dulany. 1867. 
 
 In reference to this book The Round Table of New York 
 says, — 
 
 " It is perhaps unfortunate for the abiding fame of those gallant 
 and chivalrous spirits who fought so weU and died so fearlessly 
 for what Mr. Pollard calls a Lost Cause, and Mr. Wise asserts 
 is by no means a lost cause, — on the contrary quite the reverse, 
 — tliat their memory has not been preserved from the ruthless 
 admiration of injudicious friends." 
 
 JOHN BACHMAN, Ph.D., D.D., L.L.D. 
 
 It would be a task entirely supererogative for me to dwell 
 upon the eminence in natural science held by Dr. Bachman. 
 The vigourous battle he has repeatedly given in behalf of his 
 cherished theory of the Unity of the Human Race has made 
 
24 LIVING WRITERS OF THE- SOUTH. 
 
 his name to be universally known as the great champion of 
 that theory in the South. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Bachman was born on Tuesday, the 4th of 
 February, 1790, in Dutchess County, New York. He received 
 his education in various academies and in Williams College, 
 Massachusetts, but was compelled by ill health to leave col- 
 lege before graduation. He received his degree of Doctor 
 of Philosophy from Berlin, in 1838 ; that of Doctor of Divinity 
 from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1820 ; and that of Doctor of 
 Laws from the South Carolina College, at Columbia. He is a 
 member of a number of Societies of Natural History and Philo- 
 sophy in the various kingdoms of Europe, and in America. 
 
 His works are these, — 
 
 1. Catalogue of Phenogamouf Plants and Perm growing in 
 the vicinity of C/iarleston, S. C. Published in 1834. 
 
 2. Experiments Made on the Habits of Vultures inhabiting 
 Carolina — Turkey-Buzzard and Carrion-Crow. An octavo, 
 published in Charleston in 1834. 
 
 3. Monograph of tlie Hares of America, including several 
 undescribed species. Published in 1837. 
 
 4. Monographs of tliA-jGenus Sciurus, including several new 
 species. This was published in the Transactions of the Zoologi- 
 cal Society, London, in r838. 
 
 5. The Changes in the Colour of Feathers in Birds, and the 
 Hair in Animals. This appeared in the pubUcations of the 
 Philosophical Transactions, Philadelphia, in 1839. 
 
 6. The History of the Quadrupeds of America. Three vol- 
 umes. Figures by Audubon. The first of these volumes was 
 published in 1845, and the work was completed in three years. 
 
 7. Of the Introduction and Propagation of Fresh- Water Fish. 
 Published about 1848. 
 
 8. The Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race Examined 
 on the Principles of Science. This, we believe, is considered 
 Dr. Bachman' s magnum opus. It was published in 1850. 
 
 9. An Examination of the Characteristics of Genera and 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 25 
 
 Species as applicable to the Doctrine of the Unity of the Human 
 Race. Published in 1855. 
 
 10. An Examination of Prof . Agassiz's Sketch of the Natural 
 Provinces of the Animal World and their Reiatiori to Different 
 Types of Men. This work, published in 1855, completes Dr. 
 Bachman's trilogy upon the unity of our race. ' 
 
 u. Notice of the Types of Mankind {hy Nott and Gliddon), 
 with an Examination of the Changes contained in the Life of 
 Dr. Morton. Published in 1854. This is mentioned as a work, 
 because of its significance, although it appeared as an article in 
 the Charleston Medical Journal. 
 
 12. Design and Duties of the Christian Ministry. Pubhshed 
 in 1848. 
 
 13. Defence of Luther and the Reformation (against the 
 charges of J. Bellinger and others). Published in 1853. 
 
 Besides diese, which are far rnore scientific than theological 
 and altogether polemical or combative. Dr. Bachman has written 
 a great many essays, reviews, sennons, editorials, and articles, 
 — especially upon the history of the birds of America — in vari- 
 ous periodicals. In the Soicthern Agricultural Journal, between 
 183 s and 1840, he wrote a great deal Mider the editorial head. 
 He at one time delivered and published a sermon on Duelling, 
 or rather against Duelling; and andtner on the Design and 
 Duties of the Christian Ministry. 
 
 Besides all these that have seen the light, our author had sev- 
 eral scientific works, nearly prepared for publication, destroyed 
 at the burning of Columbia by General Sherman's army, in 
 February, 1865. 
 
 Though seven years past his three-score years and ten. Dr. 
 Bachman still enjoys a hale and lively old age, with full vigour 
 of mind ; and the well-wishers of science and religion hope for 
 yet many years of usefulness and labour. 
 3 
 
26 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Miss JULIA BACON. 
 
 For several years Miss Bacon has been known as a contribu- 
 tor to periodical literature, but has used several noms de plume, 
 and has thus evaded public attention so successfully that she is 
 not half so well known as she deserves to be. I give Looking 
 for the Fairies as an average i^ecimen of her verse, — 
 
 I've peeped in many a blue-bell. 
 
 And crept among the flowers. 
 And hunted in the acom-cups. 
 
 And in the woodland bowers ; 
 And shook the yellow daffodils, 
 
 And search'd the gardens round, 
 Alooking for the little folk 
 
 I never, never found. 
 
 I've linger'd till the setting sun 
 
 Threw out a golden sheen. 
 In hope to see a fairy troupe 
 
 Come dancing on the green ; 
 And marvell'd that they did not come 
 
 To revelTn the air. 
 And wondered if they slept, and where 
 
 Their hidmg-places were. 
 
 I've wandered vrith a timid step 
 
 Beneath the moon's pale light, 
 And every blazing dew-drop seemed 
 
 To be a tiny sprite ; 
 And listened vrith suspended breath. 
 
 Among the grand old trees. 
 For fairy music floating soft 
 
 Upon the evening breeze. 
 
 Ah me 1 those pleasant, simny days. 
 
 In youthful fancies wild, — 
 Rambling through the wooded dells, 
 
 A careless, happy child 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 2^ 
 
 And now, I sit and sigh to think 
 
 Age from childhood varies, 
 And never more may we be found 
 
 Looking for the fairies. 
 
 Her little poem in reply to Flash's Mocking-Bird has been 
 received with much favour ; and another bird-song called WiWi 
 a Widower, is perhaps of equal merit, but tiiere is a little too 
 much bird-language in both of them. 
 
 Miss Bacon is of an ancient family ; one connected with the 
 honoured names of Virginia and South Carolina, — the Bacons of 
 Jamestown, and the Hamptons of Coluriibia. She is one of the 
 most retiring of our Southern writers. Her style, however, is 
 buoyant and hopeful. Enjoying perfect healtli, she has not die 
 sentimentality of "sinking frame" and "fading cheeks" and the 
 ever-thus-from-childhood's-hour-ly platitudes to fall back upon 
 in cases of emergency ; but her physique, as well as her muse, 
 is healthy and vigourous. This promises. She wrote first at 
 thirteen, and had the capital sense to be ashamed of her girlish 
 rhymes. She is now engaged upon a novel; and, in a few 
 months, we may expect to have a specimen of her work in that 
 line. My word for it, it will be cheerful, vigourous, and not 
 morbid. 
 
 GEORGE W. BAGBY. 
 
 Dr. Bagbv came into public favour as a humourous writer some 
 ten or twelve years ago, by writing a series of grotesque and 
 cacographic letters purportiftg to be written from Washington. 
 The title of this series is Mozis Addums to Billy Ivuns. These 
 letters deserved their popularity ; for they were full of genuine 
 humour, and abounded in capital hits at public men, public mea- 
 sures and manners, and life in general, as one might have found 
 them at the capital. ' I have the ' impression that they were 
 published in book form during the war. 
 
 Dr. Bagby has since that period been a favourite contributor 
 
28 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 to periodical literature, — writing, however, with much more care 
 and finish than most of our writers of occasional literature. He 
 edited the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond also, for 
 several years, meanwhile ; and has appeared frequently in Vir- 
 ginia as a lecturer, the most celebrated of his lectures being 
 entitled Bacon and Greens, or the Native Virginians. 
 
 It was during the war that he wrote some touching lyrics 
 upon war themes. The one of these that received most favour, 
 perhaps, is The Empty Sleeve, which is as follows, — 
 
 Tom, old fellow, I grieve to see 
 
 That sleeve hanging loose at your side; 
 The arm you lost was worth to me 
 
 Every Yankee that ever died. 
 But you don't mind it at all. 
 
 You swear you've a beautiful stump. 
 And laugh at the damnable ball ; 
 
 Tom, I knew you were always a trump! 
 
 A good right arm, a nervy hand, 
 
 A wrist as strong as a sapling oak. 
 Buried deep in the Malvern sand, — 
 
 To laugh at that is a sorry joke. 
 Never again your iron grip 
 
 Shall I feel in my shrinking palm ; 
 Tom, Tom, I see your trembling lip. 
 
 How on earth can / be calm ? 
 
 Well ! the arm is gone, it is true ; 
 
 But the one that is nearest the heart 
 Is left, — and that's as good as two. 
 
 Tom, old fellow, what makes you start ? 
 Why, man, she thinks that empty sleeve 
 
 A badge of honour ; so do I, 
 And all of us, — I do believe 
 
 The fellow is going to cry! 
 
 " She deserves a perfect man," you say. 
 You, " not worth her in your prime." 
 Tom, the ann that has turned to clay 
 Your whole body has made sublime ; 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 29 
 
 For you have placed in the Malvern earth 
 
 The proof and, the pledge of a noble life, 
 And the rest, henceforward of higher worth. 
 
 Will be dearer than all to your wife. 
 
 I see the people in the street 
 
 Look at your sleeve with Icindling eyes ; 
 And know you, Tom, there's nought so sweet 
 
 As homage shown in mute surmise. 
 Bravely your arm in battle strove, 
 
 Freely for freedoiri's'sak'e you gave it ; 
 It has perislied, but a nation's love 
 
 In proud remembrance will save it. 
 
 Go to your sweetheart, then, forthwith, — 
 
 You're a fool for staying so long ; 
 Woman's love you will find no myth. 
 
 But a truth, — living, tender, and strong. 
 And when around her slender belt 
 
 Your left arm is clasped in fond embrace, 
 Your right, will thrill, as if it felt 
 
 In its grave the usurper's, place. 
 
 As I look through the coming years, 
 *' I see a one-armed married man ; 
 A little woman, with smiles and tears. 
 
 Is helping as hai'd as she can 
 To put on his coat, pin his sleeve. 
 
 Tie his cravat, and cut his food, — 
 And I say, as these fancies I weave, 
 " That is Tom, and the woman he wooed." 
 
 ■ The years roll ori; and then I see 
 
 A wedding picture, bright arid fair ; 
 I look closer, and it's plain to'ine 
 
 That is Tom withthe silver hair. 
 He gives away the lovely bride. 
 
 And the guests linger, loth to le.ave 
 The house of him in whom they pride, — 
 
 Brave Tom, old, vnth the empty sleeve. 
 
 3* 
 
30 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 SAMUEL D. BALDWIN, A. M. 
 
 This author is noted for the boldness and originality of his 
 thought. His magnum opus elicited a vast deal of discussion on 
 its appearance, — in 1854, 1 believe, — and gave him a notoriety 
 accordant to tiie sensational character of his work. He has 
 written two books, — 
 
 I. Armageddon ; or the Overthrow of Romanism and Mon- 
 archy ; the Existence of the United States foretold in the Bible ; 
 its future Greatness; Invasion iy Allied Europe ; Annihilation 
 of Monarchy ; Expansion into the Millennial Republic, and its 
 Dominion over the whole World. Such is the ponderous title 
 of this full-sized duodecimo, on prophecy. The author finds all 
 these radical changes foreshadowed in the prophetical works of 
 Scripture ; and in the spirit of the most latitudinarian liberalness 
 of interpretation makes out an interesting case. The curious 
 in such things will read it with pleasure, — a pleasure somewhat 
 of a kind with that with which they ten years agb read The 
 Mysteries of Isis, or the Science of Mythematics. However, I 
 do not wish to be understood as putting Armageddon and The 
 Mysteries of Isis into exactly the same category. For, while 
 the former is quite Biblical, — excessively Biblical, I may as well 
 say, for that is my meaning, — the latter defies all efforts to 
 determine whether it is Biblical or not. But, as far as practical 
 utility, ultimate success, and, number of believers go, they are 
 about equal. The day for such theorizing, sucli seering with 
 sacred truth, such arrogance of exegesis, is probably past 
 forever. A hundred and fifty years ago this rhetoric about tlie 
 Whore of Babylon and Spread-Eagleism might have found 
 patient hearers, had the themes had existence then, among the 
 credulous and pious ; but the present age understands too well 
 the relation between the parent wish and the progeny thought to 
 take to these proofs of prophecy very cordially, however pretty, 
 learned, or profound. The authors of sucli works will doubtless 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 31 
 
 pity the present age, then; but the trouble cannot be helped, 
 as far as I can see. Armageddon appeared in Cincinnati, I be- 
 lieve first in the year 1854. A revised edition was brought out, 
 in large duodecimo, in 1864. 
 
 2. A life of Mrs. Sarah Norton; in octavo. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Baldwin is to-day President of the Soul6 
 Female CoUege, under the management of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church South. 
 
 MRS. CAROLINE A. BALL. 
 
 The only publication that I have seen of Mrs. Ball's, except- 
 ing occasional poems, is a brochure of about thirty pages, entitled 
 The Jacket of Gray, and Other Fugitive Poems, published in 
 Charleston, 1866. The epigraph-dedication of this collection is, 
 "i« Memoriam of our Loved and Lost Cause, and our Martyred 
 Dead, ' outnumbered, not outbraved.' " Most of the poems are 
 in the spirit of that dedicatory sentence. The initial poem — a 
 real heart-^oem, full of pathos, and passion, and tears — is enough 
 to stamp the author as a poet of true feeling ; not as one of 
 Tennysonjian art, or range, or style, but one like Eliza Cook, 
 with her sweet, soft touches of nature, so easy that we forget the 
 comparative absence of higher poetic art. I give it entire, — 
 
 Fold it up carefully, lay it aside ; 
 Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride ; 
 For dear must it be to our hearts evermore, 
 The jacKet of gray our loved soldier-boy wore. 
 
 Can we ever forget when he joined the brave band 
 That rose in defence of our dear southern land. 
 And in his bright youth hurried on to the fray, 
 How proudly he donned it — the jacket of gray ? 
 
 His fond mother blessed him, and looked up above. 
 Commending to Heaven the child of her love ; 
 What anguish was hers mortal tongue can not say, 
 When he passed from her sight in the jacket of gray. 
 
32 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 But her country liad caljed, and she would pot repine. 
 Though costly the saqrifice pl?.ced on it^ shrine ; 
 Her heart's dearest hopes, on its altar she lay,. 
 ■■ 'When she sent oiit her boy in the jacket of gray. 
 
 Months passed,, and war's thunders rolled oyei; the land. 
 Unsheathed was the swoi-d, and lighted the brand ; 
 We heard in the distance tlie sounds of the fray. 
 And prayed for oilf boy ill the jacket of gray. 
 
 Ah vain, all in vain were our prayers and om: tears, 
 The glad shout of victory rang in our ears ; 
 But our treasmed one on -the led -hattle-field lay. 
 While the life-blood oozed out on the jacket of gray. 
 
 His young domrades found him, and tenderly bore 
 The cold lifeless form to his home by the shore ; 
 Oh, dark were our hearts on that terrible day, 
 When we saw our dead boy in the jacket of gray. 
 
 Ah ! spotted and tatteted, Etnd stained now with gore, 
 Was the garmerit which once he so proudly wore ; 
 We bitterly wept as we took it away, 
 And replaced with death's white robe the jacket of gray. 
 
 We laid him to rest in his cold narrow bed, ■ 
 And graved on the marble we placed o'er his head. 
 As the proudest tribute our sad hearts could pay — 
 " He never disgraced the jacket of gray." 
 
 Then fold it up carefully, lay it aside. 
 Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride ; 
 For dear must it be to our hearts everniore, 
 The jacket of gray our loved soldier-boy wore ! 
 
 Simple as it is when viewed with the eye ofpotetic art, this 
 poem has touched thousands of hearts, and will be treasured 
 and kept, notwithstanding a blemish or two — as in the fourth 
 stanza — -as long as John Anderson, or The Old Arm-Chair. 
 
 Mrs. Ball, nei Rutledge, is a resident, and I believe a native 
 of the city of Charleston, South Carolina. ' 
 
 The following personal item I clip from a Southern journal: — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 33 
 
 "Mrs. Ball ighores all transcendentalism, as a poet, — she 
 writes only what every person of common intelligence may 
 understand. She is direct, and to the purpose ; and these poems 
 are such as are appropriated and appreciated at once by the 
 hearts of our people. And moreover, Mrs. Ball is one of those 
 true southern women who do not sit down and fold their hands 
 over ruined hopes and fallen fortunes, but who is ever ' up and 
 doing, with a heart for any fate.' Such unflagging energy while 
 battling with adversity as she has displayed merits a large and 
 generous reward; and we sincerely trust it will, ere long, 
 be hers.'' 
 
 Mrs. Ball has also, since the war, contiibuted some stories of 
 high order of merit to the southern press. 
 
 MISS CATHARINE WEBB BARBER. 
 
 Miss Barber is a native of Claremont, a romantic little village 
 on the banks of the Deerfield, in Franklin County, Massachu- 
 setts. She is the youngest of ten children, who graced the 
 homestead of a New-England farmer. 
 
 In 1843 her father died, and Miss Barber, at the advice of 
 her brother, came south, and entered the, Lafayette Female 
 Seminary, at Chambers Court House, Alabama. She afterwards 
 taught in the same institution. 
 
 In 1850 she became editor of the Madison Visitor, and con- 
 tinued in that capacity three years. In i860 she published two 
 volumes, consisting mainly of stories and sketches previously 
 gotten up in connection with her editorial labors. These works 
 are, — 
 
 1. Tales for the Freemasofi s Fireside. 
 
 2. The Three Golden Links. This is written in the same inte- 
 rests as the former book, and is very much of the same kind. 
 
 In 1861 she moved to Newnan, Georgia, knd became editor 
 
34 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of tlie Southern Literary Companion, which she continued to 
 edit until its suspension in 1865, — four years. 
 
 To-day she is conductor of a literary newspaper published in 
 the same town, called Miss Barber's Weekly. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN HAUNT FOR PRAYER. 
 
 Where fair fragrant buds are bursting, 
 
 On Spring's earliest emerald sod,. 
 Let me kneel, with.yearning spirit. 
 
 Kneel, and talk awhile with God : 
 In the crowded, smoky city. 
 
 There is noise, and dust, and strife ; 
 I would come where scaice a murmur 
 
 Floats up from the sea of life. 
 
 Here, upon this grand old mountain. 
 
 While the sweet-voiced breeze sweeps by. 
 And the birds, God's happiest creatures. 
 
 Cleave with bright blue wing the sky ; 
 Here, where in the moss-cups tremble 
 
 Dew, poured forth from night's black urn, 
 I will, in mom's glorious sunlight. 
 
 To my heavenly Father turn. 
 
 I will ask that I, a spirit. 
 
 Plodding through a dreary world. 
 May tread softly, gently onward. 
 
 Keeping almost unfurl'd ; 
 Ready to mount upward, upward, 
 
 'Mid heaven's glorious, dazzling light. 
 And to strike the golden harp-string, 
 
 Where the saints stand clothed in white. 
 
 I will seek for purer motives. 
 
 To control each act and word ; 
 I will pray, tod, for the sinning — 
 
 All, who from God's truth have erred ; 
 I will ask that deeper pity. 
 
 That a purer, gentler love. 
 May glow in my inner bosom. 
 
 For man, wandering from His love. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 35 
 
 Herei amid the forest monarchs. 
 
 In a temple of His own, 
 I wiE cry with fervent spirit 
 
 To my heavenly Father's throne ; 
 I will ask for strength and wisdom, 
 
 I will pray that yellow gold 
 May not prove my ignis fatuus. 
 
 Leading from the Savioiur's fold. 
 
 Bravely wave, ye proud old tree-tops ! 
 
 Pale, pale flowerets, from the sod ! 
 Hymn, thou breeze, a thrilling anthem. 
 
 Here to nature's glorious God ! 
 When the world grows dark and dreary, 
 
 I wiU fly from strife and care. 
 And will blend my praises with you. 
 
 In this Mountain Haunt for Prayer. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL BARRICK. 
 
 Mr. Barrick is now a resident of Atlanta, Georgia. He JH; 
 by birth and early life a border-state man, whose political prin- 
 ciples have borne him, during the past lustrum, southward. He 
 is a descendant from Normo-Gothic ancestry through Scottish 
 lineage. His family settled in Virginia ; and, early in the history 
 of Kentucky, emigrated to that state, where the subject of this 
 sketch was born on Thursday, the 9th of April, 1829. Barren 
 County is his native place. 
 
 He is what the world calls a self-made man. His boy-educa- 
 tion was received at a country school ; subsequently to which 
 he remained a short time at Urania College, at Glasgow, in his 
 native state, but did not graduate. His education was in that 
 one sense incomplete ; but subsequently, by self-directed study, 
 constant reading, and frequent writing — ^commencing to write 
 for the press at fifteen — he has succeeded in making up to a 
 great extent for the early deficiency ; giving to the world a style 
 
$6 LIVING Vi^RITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of education far more available than usually monies of a more 
 regular course of schoolboy education. 
 
 He was for ten or twelve years postmaster at Glasgow, — at 
 the same time pursuing the business of druggist, for which he 
 was prepared by having pursued a course of reading, looking 
 towards medicine as a profession. Later, he blended agriculture 
 with his other vocations : then, railroad interests ; then, politics ; 
 then, editing. . . ., 
 
 He was President of Barren County Agricultural Society, and 
 a Director of tlie Kentucky State Agricultural Society. 
 
 He was President of the Barren County Railroad. 
 
 He was a State Senator in the Kentucky Legislature for four 
 sessions, beginning ih 1859 ; and was a Member of the Legisla- 
 tive Council of 'Teh under the Provisional Government of 
 secessional Kentucky. His politics made Kentucky too hot to 
 hold him. He came to Macon, Georgia, in 1864 ; and was 
 there associated with the poet Flash in the editorial management 
 of the Telegraph and iJonfederate. Since the var, he has been 
 associated with A. R. Watson in editing a newspaper in Atlanta, 
 to which city Mr. Barrick then removed to engage in mercantile 
 business. He was for a time associate editor of Scoffs Monthly 
 Magazine, published in Atlanta. 
 
 He was married in 1851, and has now a family. 
 
 In politics, he is, a Democrat of the old school,; in religion, a 
 Presbyterian; in health, feeble; in temper, amiable; and in 
 manner and bearing, grave and undemonstrative. 
 
 He has contributed extensively to periodicals, of the west and 
 south principally, but also Of the north, —r- such as Graham's 
 Magazine, Godefs Lady's Book, Moar^s Western Magazini, 
 The Literary , Companion^ Georgia Literary and Temperame 
 Crusader, Columbiatt a,nd Great Western, andi most of the 
 Tennessee and Georgia newspapers. 
 
 As a poet, Mr. Barrick has always enjofyed a certain respecta- 
 bility at which he .seemed to aim, rather than to affect tlie bizarre 
 or the tragic. The longest of his poems that I have seen is 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 37 
 
 Kentucky, written during the war. It is a lament over the fallen 
 glories of his native state, — the betrayed, and the yet-by-brave- 
 ones-defended la'nd, again more bloody than in those aboriginal 
 days whicb gave it a name that means Dark and Bloody. The 
 poem is earnest, long, indignant, and resistive ; worthy in spirit 
 to have been uttered by Clarence Mangan over his Dark Rosa- 
 leen, and resembling that other of Erin's rebellious bards, — 
 Thomas Davis. Indeed, tliere are many points in common 
 between our Kentucky poet and Davis. They both wrote 
 poems for occasions, — poems upon the evetits of the very day 
 of writing ; both wrote in the interests of what they felt to be 
 true liberty ; both wrote for the many and for immediate use. 
 Besides, the style of English and the tone and temper of their 
 verses — the absence of wild and erratic ' fires '-^- are the same in 
 both poets. Davis is not known widely enoiigh in this country 
 for this comparison to convey to the common reader the full 
 force of the compliment to pur poet intended in it. 
 
 Mr. Barrick has written scores of^ war -songs, in which the 
 main interest passes witli the time from which the songs sprung. 
 I shall pass ovei: tiiis class entirely, in my. notice of what is 
 characteristic in his writings. , . 
 
 A collection of his numerous fugitive poems is about to be 
 offered to fee'iJublic in a small volume ; but the pubHshers have 
 not yet announced it; 
 
 In The Beautiful, which I quote as a fan: specimen, the 
 author barely, escaped writing a very fine poem. The theme is 
 not new, and the form — ^the vehicle, as the reviewers say — has 
 been used a score of times; and yet the esthetic sense is never 
 weary of fancies that flash around that tlarone of the true poef s 
 divinity, — the Beautiful. The poem here has more than fan- 
 cies however, for its best touches are well-defined imagination. 
 
 I quote entire, — 
 
 I asked the artist, dreaming a dream, 
 
 For the ideal pf his ?oul, : 
 
 As he sought to mirror the Spiritual 
 That over his senses stole ; 
 4 
 
38 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 In the heavy sigh of his sad reply, 
 
 I read how the task was vain, 
 To trace on the vacant canvas there. 
 
 The image of heart and brain. 
 
 I asked the poet, one summer eve. 
 
 Alone in the spell of his thotxght. 
 For the form that over his fancy stole. 
 
 The shadow his spirit sought ; 
 With a mournful voice he rose to tell. 
 
 How wildly and madly he strove 
 To link his rhyme to the silver chime 
 
 Of the singing stars above. 
 
 I asked his theme, in a musing mood. 
 
 Of the proud philosopher. 
 His soul to the shrine of nature wed, 
 
 A votive worshipper ; 
 He deigned to tell how the beautiful 
 
 Had lured him from his birth. 
 Leading his eye afar through the sky. 
 
 And over the wastes of earth. 
 
 I asked the good man, riang devout. 
 
 One eve, from his silent prayer, 
 If ever a sense of the beautiful 
 
 Was his, in devotion to share ; 
 " ' Tis the spirit of God," was his answer meek, 
 
 "Abroad in the earth and sky ; 
 By day and by night its blazing light. 
 
 As a beacon to the eye." 
 
 I saw it, then, in the glow of the star — 
 
 In the hue of the beautiful flower. 
 Its spell abroad in the glaring day. 
 
 In the hush of the midnight hour ; 
 Its image bright as a rainbow set 
 
 In the murky cloud of sight. 
 At morn and even sent down from Heaven 
 
 Its fountain of glory and light. 
 
 The following picture of Madaline may take its place among 
 the numerous Lilians of the poet-portrait gallery, — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 39 
 
 She sometimes seemed to wear a smile. 
 
 And then a loolc of care. 
 As if the lights and shades of life 
 
 She sought alilie to share, — 
 As if one moment joy was hers. 
 
 And in the next, despair. 
 
 She sometimes seemed an angel sent 
 
 With bliss to lend the earth ; 
 A being born of high-souled thought. 
 
 In guise of mortal birth ; 
 A seraph from the sky above. 
 
 Of superhuman worth. 
 
 She sometimes seemed a singing-bird 
 
 Of sweet melodious tune, — 
 A warbler in the vocal groves 
 
 Of gay and laughing June ; 
 At will to roam on wings of mom. 
 
 And free to rest at noon. 
 
 She sometimes seemed a spirit bright, 
 
 The genie of the hours ; 
 A honey-bee that fed upon 
 
 The sweetness of the flowers ; 
 An oriole, the live-long day 
 
 That sang in summer bowers. 
 
 She sometimes seemed a thing of light, 
 
 A sunbeam of the dawn ; 
 Her steps fleet as the wild gazelle. 
 
 And graceful as the fawn ; 
 But dark are all things bright, since she 
 
 From the earth is past and gone. 
 
 A flower that only bloomed in May, 
 
 A bird whose song is hushed ; 
 An angd, — now the harp is still 
 
 From whence such music gushed ; 
 A rosebud that just met the light, 
 
 Then faded as it blushed. 
 
40 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 With one more lyric I close these representative extracts. 
 It appeared before the war, and is called One Year Ago, — 
 
 A smile is on thy lips to-night, 
 
 A joy is in thine eyes, 
 And on thy brow there beams a light 
 
 That with no shadow vies ; 
 I think of days that swift have past, 
 
 Of pleasures still that flow. 
 And joys that have no sorrow cast, 
 
 Though bom one year ago. 
 
 Tho' spring and summer have come and gone. 
 
 And winter's here again. 
 We still may view each grove and lawn 
 
 With sense unmixed with pain ; 
 For in our hearts still brighter grows 
 
 The only flame they know — 
 The love that in each bosom glows, 
 
 Just bom one year ago. 
 
 Our hearts were linked with magic bands 
 
 Just wove one year ago. 
 Like waves that met on ocean's strands. 
 
 Then back in union flow ; 
 'Mid winter's gloom, 'mid summer's flowers 
 
 We've lived unknown to woe, 
 Yet linked have been with light-winged hours. 
 
 Just bom one year ago. 
 
 No changes yet have crossed our path. 
 
 No sorrows veiled our eyes. 
 No thunder-clouds dissolved in wrath 
 
 Above our Paradise ; 
 And when the winds and waves complain. 
 
 The storms and tempests blow. 
 We'll turn our eyes and hearts again 
 
 To view one year ago. 
 
 In person Mr. Barrick is tall — full six feet in height — and 
 Cassius-like in his proportions and physiognomy. From his 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 41 
 
 boyhood he has been partially lame, and has seldom been able 
 to walk without cane or crutch. ' He is a man of retiring habits 
 and recluse tastes. His attachments are strong and permanent, 
 and his general habits of mind conservative. 
 
 His chirograph is regular, large, and plain, without flourishes 
 and free from affectation. It is strong; earnest, and to the last 
 letter legible. In all these things it is just like the man. It fur- 
 ther manifests great directness of character — an absence of all 
 mere diplomacy and cunning. ^ His mind is direct, and disposes 
 him to say what he means ; and that in a straightforward, unos- 
 tentatious, and intelligible manner. He hates mystery, and 
 would iind no pleasure in detective dCities tliat made the very 
 life of such men as Machiavelli in the upper, arid Vidocq in the 
 lower, stratum of rascality. I mean tO; say also that his mind is 
 exceedingly honest ; and this gives permanenby to his impres- 
 sions, consistency to his opinions, and constancy to his affections. 
 There is no trickery in his mind, either in the intellect, or the 
 emotions, or the passions. 
 
 BENJAMIN C. BARROLL. 
 
 The author oi Maryland Chancery Practice, with an Appendix, 
 is a member of the Baltimore bar, and stands high in his pro- 
 fession. The book goes something beyond its title. Matters of 
 equity jurisdiction, as well as pleading and practice, come 
 within its scope. It appeared in Baltimore during the present 
 year. 
 
 JAMES AVIS BARTLEY; 
 
 Professor Bartdey is a native of Virginia, and was elected 
 to a iw^essorship-in the Baltimore Female College in the sum- 
 
42 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 mer of 1867. He has for several years contributed verses to 
 various southern periodicals ; and at present writes for the Home 
 Monthly, published in Nashville, and, for the Southern Home 
 Journal, of Baltimore. His first, and, as far as. I am advised, his 
 only volume, appeared about 1856. It is entitled Poems, and is 
 a collection of very miscellaneous verses, in which we fail to find 
 one single trace of merit 
 
 MRS. MARTHA HAINES BUTT BENNETT. 
 
 Mrs. Bennett is, I beheve, a native, and is perhaps also a 
 resident, of Norfolk, Virginia, 
 
 She wrote a good deal under her maiden name, and published 
 her volume under that name. It is entitled Pastimes with 
 Little Friends, and appeared before the war. . 
 
 As Mrs. Bennett we have heard of her more rarely, though 
 we occasionally see her name and contributions among the 
 writers for southern periodicals. During the present year it was 
 rumoured that she had a volutne prepared for publication, but 
 the title has not transpired yet. 
 
 MRS. MARY CATHARINE BIGBY. 
 
 There are few of her sex in the south who have written 
 clearer little gems of verse than Mrs. Bigby, of Newnan, 
 Georgia; though she is known, and limitedly known at that, 
 only as one who has written for die periodical press. Though 
 not an author in any technical sense, I desire to make mention 
 of one so well able to take such rank with full hope of success. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 43 
 
 Mrs. Bigby, 7iee Dougherty, was born in- Newnan, Georgia, 
 about thirty years ago. Her education was commenced there, 
 and finished at the Methodist College at Madison, in the same 
 state. Married at seventeen, she has had less than usual leisure 
 for mere literary recreation-work, as such work is often felt to be 
 in the south ; still she has written perhaps a volume in quantity. 
 Is timid and retiring in disposition ; but a real poet. 
 
 The following picture of Delilah is a little lyric of sprightly 
 grace and great music, — 
 
 A Gentile girl with jetty eyes. 
 
 And hair of tropic gloom. 
 Gleaming with gems of Araby, 
 
 And sweet -ypith its perfume ; 
 
 Each rippling fold and sheeny wave 
 
 Plaited with studied grace, — 
 A frame of ebon to enshrine 
 
 The picture of her face ; 
 
 A warm, , bright mouth, aglow with love, 
 
 A cheek where brown and red 
 In loving rivalry combine 
 
 To make the dimple's bed ; 
 
 Arms rounded with a sculptor's art, 
 
 Hands supple, soft, and fair, 
 And other charms but half concealed 
 
 Shpviring beauties stiE more rare ; 
 
 She comes from ages far remote, 
 
 A type of woman's power ; 
 A fiend of hell, a form of light. 
 
 Beauty her only dower. 
 
 A bright anathema she stands. 
 
 Defiant in her charms ; 
 For Gaza's giant was a child 
 
 Encircled in her arms. 
 
44 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The following lines on the death of Polk are full of vigour, 
 grace, and dignity, — equal in its pecuHar suggestiveness to 
 Randall's tribute to Pelham, — 
 
 No richer harvest Death hath reaped 
 
 In all the southern gleaning ; 
 No braver blood than his that flovired 
 
 With Eucharistic meaning. 
 
 He left the soil he died to save, 
 
 Crimsoned with his gore, 
 To claim the sacerdotal crown 
 
 The martyred Stephen wore. 
 
 The Cross, the emblem of his faith, 
 
 He bore with meek renown. 
 Till, budding like the Levite's rod. 
 
 It blossomed in a Crown ! 
 
 All o'er the land a Lent of tears 
 
 Shall Salem's daughters keep ; 
 Her sons look on with stony eyes. 
 
 For Vengeance must not weep ! 
 
 I desire to place side by side with this gem another on the 
 same subject, of which I have made rnention elsewhere, 
 by Flash, — 
 
 A flash from the edge of a hostile trench, 
 
 A puff of smoke — a roai-. 
 Whose echo shall roll from the Kennesaw hills 
 
 To the farthermost Christian shore, — 
 Proclaims to the world that the warrior-priest 
 
 Will battle for right no more. 
 
 And that, fof a cause which is sanctified 
 By the blood of martyrs unknown, — 
 
 A cause, for which they gaSre their lives. 
 And for which he gave his own ; 
 
 He kneels, a meek ambassador 
 At the foot of the Father's throne. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 45 
 
 And up in the courts of another world 
 
 That angels alone have trod, 
 He lives, away from the din and strife 
 
 Of this blood-besprinkled sod, 
 Crowned with the amaranthine wreath 
 
 That is worn by the blest of God. 
 
 I venture to offer the following, entitled The Balm of Gilead, 
 as demonstrative of the fact that a vifoman can write blank verse 
 and write it well, which proof is needed after so many and such 
 lamentable failures in that line. These lines, published in 1862, 
 are not only fair blank verse, but good poetry, — 
 
 Rachel-like she wept. 
 For one long night, in which the sun arose 
 And set and rose again, yet still 'twas night ; 
 Through a dismal winter slie had mourned — 
 Winter, in which a baby spring was bom, 
 That grew to summer's womanhood, and then 
 Bore autumn's fiiiit, and yet 'twas winter still. 
 For grJef had blotted out the very smi. 
 And clothed the verdant landscape with a pall 
 December never wore. 
 
 Upon this night 
 A promise shone — pale and faint it beamed. 
 As the gloaming of a star, then clearer. 
 Brighter grew, until all was perfect day. 
 It was a precious promise ; one of many 
 Thickly scattered as the stars of heaven 
 Upon the pages of the Book whose leaves 
 Are for the nation's healing. 
 
 It seemed 
 The fairest gem the sacred casket held, 
 "The brightest star of all the galaxy," 
 To her ; for it was her strength in ■vveakness. 
 Her manna in the wilderness of sin. 
 The dove that brought the olive-branch of peace 
 
46 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 When troubled waters, bitter to the taste 
 As Marah's streams, had engulpjied her souL 
 A promise which was given long ago, 
 Unto her sires, and unto her and hers. 
 And was wafted down tlirough the ages past 
 Like fragrant incense, yet replete with good 
 As when 'twas given. It was like a voice 
 Singing all day within the heart of hearts. 
 Until the dimmed chambers of her soul 
 Echoed with melody, as the woods 
 When birds have built a nest in every tree. 
 The day she found this balm in Gilead 
 Was like a silvery thread inwoven 
 In the sombre woof of years ; a flower, 
 A perfect flower, that blossomed out 
 The frozen snows of winter. 
 
 Men marvelled 
 When she ceased to weep ; she whose head was once 
 A fount of tears ; upon whose very life 
 Ichabod seem'd written. They wondered 
 At the patience tribulation wrought, 
 The hidden strength of great endurance bom. 
 
 MARK F. BIGNEY. 
 
 Mr. BiGNEY, poet and editor, is an adoptive son of the south. 
 He was born in Cumberland, Nova Scotia. His paternal 
 ancestry vifere Huguenots, while his maternal line is English. 
 He is a self-made man, self-taught and self-sustained. In 1847, 
 while quite young, he visited England ; and in the following year 
 removed to New Orleans, where he has since lived, connected in 
 various ways with the press of that city, as a contributor, reporter, 
 editor. Before the war he conducted, for several years, a literary 
 weekly called The Mirror. Since 1864 he has been associate- 
 editor of the New Orleans Times, one of the most successful 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 47 
 
 daily newspapers in America ; and I beKeve he is now editor- 
 in-chief of that journal. 
 
 The only volume that Mr. Bigney has yet published is called 
 The Forest Pilgrims, and Other Poems, which appeared in 1867, 
 from the press of M. Doolady, New York. It is a handsome 
 duodecimo, of 258 pages. As fair specimens of the contents of 
 the volume, I present the following poems. The Wreck of the 
 Nautilus celebrates the destruction of the steamship of that name 
 in the Gulf of Mexico, in 1856. She was en route from Galveston 
 to New Orleans, with quite a number of passengers on board, of 
 whom only one was saved. I quote the poem entire, — 
 
 War on the waters ! Now the Cyclone's breath 
 Rouses the waves in the wild dance of death ; 
 Tears off their crests, as revolutions tear 
 The crowns from kings. There's fury in the air. 
 Assuming horrent shapes, which madly sweep. 
 With demon cries, across the tortured deep. 
 
 Woe to the mariner ! His oak-ribbed bark 
 No more can serve as a protecting ark ! 
 Mastless and rudderless she drifts, a wreck. 
 While the fierce billows thunder on her deck. 
 Still clamourous for victims ! Woe to thee, 
 Thou peopled plaything of the raging sea 1 
 
 Here cling the brave, whom storms can not appal. 
 
 And there, the timid, who all vainly call. 
 
 In prayers, fear-prompted, for some swift relief. 
 
 Still mingling with the waves their tears of grief. 
 
 O, soaring Hope ! thy gentle wings must fail 
 
 When scathful ruin rides iipon the gale. 
 
 Man's puny might is powerless to save. 
 
 For regal I^eptune has prepared a grave 
 
 All coral-gemm'd, dovra in his purple deep. 
 
 And summoned all his Nereids to weep. 
 
 High and still higher rolls the mountam surge. 
 Fierce and still fiercer angry tempests urge 
 Its onward sweep. It comes ! it comes ! beware I 
 Whom, in its overwhelming fury, will it spare? 
 
48 LIKING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 O'ertiirned and torn, a thing of broken pride. 
 
 The wreck is swallowed by the hungry tide ; 
 
 And, as it disappear^ wild prayers and cries 
 
 Of concentrated agony arise. 
 
 O man ! still clinging to that bubble, life. 
 
 Why art thou still with destiny at strife ? 
 
 What boots thy frantic struggles ? Death is nigh, — 
 
 Yield, yield, and learn it is not hard to die. 
 
 Some sink at once within the roaring sea. 
 
 To rise, the heirs of immortality ; 
 
 While others, battling with the billows, gain 
 
 A few sad moments more of life and pain. 
 
 Thus, one by one, the victims disappear. 
 
 Till all save two are gone, — two strugglers, near 
 
 Each other clinging to a floating tree. 
 
 Thrown in their way by chance or destiny. 
 
 The storm has spent its fury. Now again 
 Bright skies are mirrored in the glassy main ; 
 And the two seamen, on their friendly pine. 
 Voyage along in safety o'er the brine. 
 Their bark of roots fantastic is possessed. 
 Wreathed in the form of a gigantic nest. 
 Where, iii the wilds of ocean solitude. 
 Some monster bird has nursed her callow brood. 
 
 Here nestling, hopeful seemed the twain at first. 
 
 But soon came hunger and unceasing thirst 
 
 To rack them into torture. Oh, what pain 
 
 To be thus starving on the watery plain ! 
 
 To hope till hope assumes the guise of death. 
 
 And torture is increased with every breath ! 
 
 Thus days and days were spent, till phantoms rose 
 
 With ghastly horrors to augment their woes ; 
 
 Strange shapes flit past that mocked them as they flew. 
 
 Strange sounds seemed uttered by some demon crew, 
 
 And all seemed strange, and terrible, and dread. 
 
 As fiendish revels round the unshrived dead. 
 
 E'en the winged fish, in fond and sportive flight. 
 
 Were birds of evil omen to their sight ; 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. it^ 
 
 And the fair nautilus, with sillten sail, 
 
 Was but the prophet of some rising gale. 
 
 Down in the deep what monster forms drew nigh. 
 
 With eyes of fire ; and skeletons swam by. 
 
 Like mocking deaths, which seemed with bony hand. 
 
 To point new terrors in some viewless land. 
 
 Surrounded thus with every form of woe 
 
 That shipwrecked man was ever doomed to know. 
 
 One of the two leaped madly In the tide 
 
 To cool his burning brow ; — he sank, and died. 
 
 The other still lived on, if it be life, 
 When every breath with agony is rife ; 
 And when, with waning strength, to know and feel 
 Has more of pang than torture's racking wheeL 
 He was of Ethiop blood and stalwart frame. 
 And lived, he knew not why. No honoured name 
 And wealth of hopes were his ; still lived he on 
 Till hope and all but agony were gone. 
 
 Eight days of pain had passed. The evening star 
 Already gleamed in azure depths afar. 
 When, like some sea-bird vast, a sail drew nigh. 
 Paused by the pine to bear the victims cry. 
 And gentle hands raised to a friendly deck 
 The lone survivor of the foundered wreck. 
 
 The other poem I quote is a lyric called For Thee, My Love, 
 For Thee. And both Moore and Morris have often done 
 worse, — oftener than they have done better. 
 
 Thy love's the sim, thou peerless one, — 
 
 It warms me with its glow ; 
 With light divine it seems to shine. 
 
 Though I alone can know 
 Its secret charm, a shield from harm 
 
 On life's uncertain sea. 
 Oh, I shall pray both night and day. 
 
 For thee, my love, for thee. 
 5 
 
so LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 With starry gleams, in holy dreams 
 
 Thou comest to my soul. 
 As o'er a strand of golden sand 
 
 Life's sparkling waters roll ; 
 And, with the kiss of purest bliss. 
 
 Attuned to harmoiiy. 
 My thoughts arise to brightest skies. 
 
 With thee, my love, with thee. 
 
 The golden chimes of sweetest rhymes 
 
 Thy charms but faintly tell ; 
 The softest note that e'er did float 
 
 From fairy horn or shell. 
 With birds that sing and flowers of spring. 
 
 And all bright things tliat be. 
 None can compare, witli voice or air. 
 
 With thee, my love, with thee. 
 
 Oh, I would write thy name with light 
 
 To shame the stars above ; 
 And in high lays would ever praise 
 
 The riches of thy love. 
 All wealth that shines in golden mines. 
 
 All gems of land and sea. 
 Are but jis rust and trampled dust. 
 
 To thee, my love, to thee. 
 
 WILLIAM BINGHAM. 
 
 Colonel Bingham is of the third generation in a family of 
 teachers, — teachers who have always maintained a prominent 
 place in that honourable profession. The school they teach and 
 have taught is at Mebaneville, in North Carolina, and is now 
 under the charge of the subject of this sketch. Colonel Bing- 
 ham was "born a schoolmaster." His birth occurred on 
 Tuesday, the 7th of July, 1835 ; and he has followed the foot- 
 steps of his father and grandfather in adopting the profession of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 51 
 
 teaching. He graduated, after- preparation under his father, at 
 the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, in 1856, 
 having attained the first distinction throughout the course. He 
 has now been twelve years a teaclier, and commenced author- 
 ship in 1861. In preparing a text-book in Latin, he was but 
 carrying out a purpose of his father, whose failing health pre- 
 vented his personal attention to it. Colonel Bingham, being "to 
 the manor born," proposes to "die in the harness," and finish 
 his career as he has commenced it. He has published, — 
 
 1. A Grammar of theJLatin Language, for the use of Schools, 
 with Exercises and Vocabularies. This work first appeared in 
 Confederate times, issued by a house in Greensboro, North 
 Carolina, in 1863, — flagrante bello. A new and revised edition 
 appeared in 1866 in New York, which stands high, if not first, 
 among the Latin grammars published in the United States. 
 
 2. CcRsar's Commentaries, with Notes anda Vocabulary. Pub- 
 lished in 1864. A new edition preparing. 
 
 3. A Grammar of the English Language, for the use of 
 schools and academies, with copious parsing exercises, 1867. 
 This I regard, after careful examination, as clearly the best 
 English grammar yet published in the United States. 
 
 Colonel Bingham has in preparation an edition of Sallusf s 
 Jugurthine War and Conspiracy of Cataline, to be pubhshed 
 at some future day. 
 
 ALBERT TAYLOR BLEDSOE, A.M., LL.D. 
 
 Mr. Bledsoe is a Virginian by birtli, and a graduate of West 
 Point. He was for a while professor in the University of Missis- 
 sippi; and subsequently, for several years just preceding the 
 war, was Professor of Mathematics in the University of Virginia. 
 Early in the war he was Chief of the Bureau of War, under the 
 Provisional Government. Since the war he has been engaged 
 
52 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 in getting up and editing the Southern Review, a quarterly, of 
 which, in conjunction with Mr. Browne, he got out the first 
 number in January, 1867. The Review is Uke its chief editor 
 — fearless, able, bold, gloveless, scholsu-ly, and distinctly south- 
 em, though not belligerently sectional. The tone and manner 
 are sometimes felt to be severe, and these features are hardly 
 accidental. 
 
 Mr. Bledsoe is the author of, — 
 
 1. An Eocamination of Edwards on the Will. 
 
 2. A Theodicy ; or vindication of the divine glory as mani- 
 fested in the constitution and government of the moral world. 
 An octavo, published in New York, 1854. 
 
 J,. An Essay on Liberty and Slavery. Published in Phila- 
 delphia, 1856. 
 
 4. The Philosophy of Mathematics, with Special Reference to 
 the Elements of Geometry and the Infinitesimal Method. 1867. 
 
 After showing the defects of text-books hitherto used in the 
 higher departments of mathematics, the author of this work pro- 
 ceeds to define its scope and purpose in tliis wise, — 
 
 " Now, the very first condition of the existence of a mathe- 
 matical science, as such, is, that its first principles shall be so 
 clear and so perfectly defined that no one can mistake them. 
 But even this primary and indispensable condition is not fulfilled 
 by most of the treatises or text-books on the infinitesimal analy- 
 sis. Hence this analysis, as usually developed in books for the 
 instruction of beginners, is still in a semi-chaotic state. If, then, 
 we would introduce anything like order, harmony, and beauty 
 of real mathematical science into the transcendental analysis, 
 the first step to be taken, is, to exhibit its first principles in a 
 clear and unmistakable light. My object in this work is to 
 contribute all in my power toward so desirable a result ; or, in 
 other words, to render as clear as possible the fundamental 
 principles of the higher calculus, from which the whole science 
 should be seen to flow in the form of logical consequence, and 
 that, too, as clearly as the light of day flows from the sun. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. S3 
 
 Much has already been done in this direction ; far, far more 
 than has been appropriated by the so-called teachers of the 
 science. Hence I shall have frequent occasion to avail myself 
 of the labours of others, but I shall never do so without an ex- 
 plicit acknowledgment of my obligation to them. In the 
 prosecution of this design, I shall trace the rise and progress of 
 the infinitesimal analysis from the first appearance of its ele- 
 ments in the Greek geometry to the present day. This will 
 enable us to see the more clearly the exact nature of its methods 
 by showing us the difficulties it has had to encounter, and the 
 precise manner in which it has surmounted them. It will also 
 disclose in a clear light the merits of the various methods of the 
 calculus in the successive stages of its development, from Euclid 
 and Archimedes to Cavalieri and Pascal, and from Cavalieri 
 and Pascal to Newton and Leibnitz. Nor is this all. For such 
 a historical sketch will show us that, after all its wanderings 
 through the dark undefined regions of the infinite, the human 
 mind will have to come back to the humble and unpretending 
 postulates of Euclid and Archimedes, in order to lay out and 
 construct a satisfactory and easy road across the Alpine heights 
 ofthe transcendental analysis. And besides, is there not a plea- 
 sure, — is there not an inexpressible delight in the contemplation 
 of the labours of the human mind, by which it has created by far 
 its most sublime instrument of discovery, — an instrument, indeed, 
 with which it has brought to light the secrets of almost every 
 department, and with which, above all, it has unveiled the entire 
 system of the material universe to the wonder and admiration 
 ofthe world?" 
 
 This statement, while it gives us a satisfactory idea of the 
 scope of the volume in question, gives us also a glimpse of the 
 au tiler's style — that reflex of an author's mind, better than most 
 other indicia, to determine the character in general. What man 
 does is indicative of his character to some extent ; and among 
 the results that go to indicate the inner man, a specimen of his 
 style is one of the best. 
 S* 
 
54 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The chirograph of our author is nervous and irregular, but 
 exact and legible. It is not disfigured, nor adorned, with flour- 
 ishes ; but marches with an eager and angular movement directly 
 forward. This hand indicates a large confidence in self, impa- 
 tience of interference, irritability and severity, together with 
 exactness, clearness of thought, and a positiveness in its way 
 mathematical. 
 
 MISS ANNIE R. BLOUNT. 
 
 The appearance of a small volume oi Poems in i860 gives 
 Miss Blount a place among the verse-writers of the south. 
 
 She was born on Saturday, the 22d of June, 1839, I believe, 
 in Richmond County, Georgia ; and to-day resides in the city 
 of Augusta, of that state. She was educated at the Methodist 
 Female College at Madison, where she graduated at the age of 
 seventeen. Her graduating poem. The Follies of the Age, a 
 satire, gained her much applause. She has since taken several 
 prizes offered for poems and tales. At one time, just after her 
 graduation, she "assumed the editorial responsibility of a paper 
 published at Bainbridge, Georgia." 
 
 A frequently-used no7n de plume ys, Jenny Woodbine. 
 
 Her volume of verses is full of sad thoughts ; and some few 
 merits here and there appear ; but there is too much despon- 
 dency, partly real and partly affected. The versification is 
 fair for a schoolgirl, and once in a while runs into sweet music. 
 I quote one piece that will illustrate all these points, both 
 good and bad at once. She calls it The Past, — 
 
 Back to your caves again, 
 
 Dreams of the buried past ! 
 And never more on me 
 
 Your gloomy shadows cast. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 55 
 
 A gulf is fixed between 
 
 Such memories and me, — 
 A gulf all wide and deep. 
 
 And I — I wili be free. 
 
 Stir not, O day-cold corpse ! 
 
 The stone is on your grave ; 
 I am released at last. 
 
 So long, so long a slave. 
 And yet, O dream of mine. 
 
 Cream beautiful, but fled ! 
 Sometimes zX. midnight hour 
 
 I weep that thou art dead. 
 
 'Twas night, there was no moon. 
 
 And no one else was by; 
 With calm and tearless face, 
 
 I watched, and saw ye die. 
 Beade a hearthstone cold. 
 
 With ashes covered .o'er, 
 I counted your quick gasps. 
 
 And knew you'd smile no more. 
 
 I heard your last deep sob. 
 
 Your faint and quivering breath ; 
 And smiled to see that thou 
 
 Wert beautiful in death. 
 I smoothed your rigid Umbs, 
 
 An-anged each shining tress, 
 Apd Idssed your still white lips 
 
 With yearning tenderness. 
 
 I tried to turn away 
 
 In calm and quiet pride ; 
 Some lingering weakness yet 
 
 Detained me at your side. 
 I closed your earnest eyes. 
 
 And then, in sudden pain. 
 And Tidth a gush of love 
 
 I kissed your lips again. 
 
56 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 One hour on me had done 
 
 The work of many years ; 
 And yet my face was still, — 
 
 A grief too deep for tears 
 Had hushed each gasping sob — 
 
 But why, oh ! why again 
 Recall from its cold tomb 
 
 That long, long night of pain ? 
 
 J. M. BONNELI., D.D. 
 
 The Reverend President of Wesleyan Female College, Macon, 
 Georgia, has published but one book — a text-book, entitled A 
 Manual of the Art of Prose Composition, for the use of Schools 
 and Colleges. It was published by Morton &-Co., of Louisville, 
 Kentucky, in 1867, and was received with great favour by the 
 press of the South. 
 
 The Southern Review says of this work, "Even our cursory 
 examination has detected very many inaccuracies"; and pro- 
 ceeds to show the truth of the statement. 
 
 MISS SALLIE A. BROCK. 
 
 This promising and energetic writer of the Old Dominion is 
 one of those young authors who found their stimulus in the 
 stringencies that resulted from the late war. 
 
 Miss Brock is a native of Madison Court-House, a pictu- 
 resque little village that lies in the shadow of the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains, — a section of Virginia celebrated for the romantic 
 beauty of its scenery, the intelligence, and the high moral and 
 social character of its inhabitants. Her education was com- 
 menced at home under the eye of her father, continued imder 
 private tutors and a governess, and finished at the University of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 57 
 
 Virginia. Two years prior to the war, the family removed to 
 Richmond, where, for these two years, our author was engaged 
 in teaching. Occasionally, tlien, fugitive pieces of verse found 
 their way from her escritoire to the public prints, but always 
 under a nom deplume, — sometimes Virginia Madison, sometimes 
 simply Virginia. Her family is Welsh ; and in its maternal 
 line embraces the Checos, the Beverleys, the Burtons, and the 
 Buckners, — the last being the maiden name of Miss Brock's 
 motiier. 
 
 Miss Brock's literary productions embrace, — 
 
 I. Richmond During the War ; Four Years of Personal Ob- 
 servation. By a Riclimond Lady. Appeared in 1867 from a 
 New York publishing house, and was very favourably received 
 by the press bodi north and south. A northern reviewer says 
 ofit,— 
 
 " To say that it is one of the most interesting works that has 
 been produced on the war would give, after all, but a faint and 
 inadequate impression of its real merits. Characterized by a 
 purity of style and thought, a delicacy of sentiment, and an 
 earnestness of conviction that are too rarely found in tlie publi- 
 cations of the day, it is destined, we believe, to have a widely 
 extended circulation. The hopes and fears, the resolution and 
 self-sacrifice, the sufferings and privations, the heroism and cour- 
 age displayed by the southern people, are described with all the 
 warm afifection and loving reverence of a true woman's heart — 
 a heart whose every throb beat in sympathy with the cause of 
 the South. 
 
 " The style is peculiarly pleasing, and the literary character of 
 the book is of the highest order. Full of incident, and of stir- 
 ring, striking, and often thrilling scenes, the interest of the work 
 never flags. All the joyousness of victory, and the gloom of 
 defeat, all the glory and all the horrors of war, are depicted with 
 a life-like vividness; and the leading characters that appear 
 upon the stage are painted with the fidelity of truth itself. The 
 title of the volume would convey the impression that the scope 
 
S8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 is limited to Richmond ; but this is not so, for the fair authoress 
 takes in the whole range of the Confederacy, and describes the 
 influence of this or that event as affecting the general progress 
 of the contest." 
 
 This would be high praise even from a southern journal. Its 
 significance, coming from a northern source, is suggestive of a 
 high degree of merit in tlie work. 
 
 2. The Southern Amaranth. This is not strictly a work of 
 authorship, being a " volume of poems, generally by southern 
 authors, compiled and arranged" by Miss Brock. The design 
 of the work is " to give assistance to the Memorial Associations 
 of the South, engaged in exliuming the remains from the battle- 
 fields, and laying them in consecrated grounds." It was pub- 
 lished by subscription in 1868. 
 
 This collection is a veiy valuable one ; and the work takes 
 rank with the similar works by Dr. Gilmore Simms of South 
 Carolina, Miss Emily V. Mason of Virginia, Mr. De Leon of 
 Baltimore, and Bohemian of New Orleans. It has points of 
 superiority to all of them. The first edition sold rapidly. 
 
 3. Myra, or the Foreshadowings. This is a novel. It is an- 
 nounced, but I have not yet had tlie pleasure of seeing a copy. 
 The theme proper is the issue between the infidel's belief in 
 destiny and the Christian's faith in Providence. 
 
 As a poet. Miss Brock has written a good deal, — quite a vol- 
 ume in quantity ; and I presume it will ere long be pubHshed in 
 that form. The main fault I have to find with this author — and 
 one is expected to find fault always — as a poet, is a too great 
 facility at composition ; and this ease results in some degree of 
 carelessness or imperfection in finish ; yet never a line that she 
 has written is lacking in the true strength, earnestness, quickness 
 and delicacy of feeUng, that contribute so much to genuine 
 poetic effects. Some of the longest of these poems, of which I 
 have found many in the Metropolitan Record, are upon local 
 and occasional subjects; as. The Fall of Richmond, The Story of 
 the Powhattan (the James), and On the Death of Henry Timrod. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 59 
 
 I quote Love Beyond Time, as fairly illustrative of Miss Brock's 
 poetic style, — 
 
 Beneath the green magnolia boughs. 
 
 We sat beside a fountain, 
 And watched the day-god as he sank 
 
 To rest, behind a mountain. 
 The "lengthening shadows" o'er the pl^ 
 
 All alently were stealing. 
 While tiny stars their glimmering eyes 
 
 Were timidly revealing. 
 
 The zephyr wild on wooing wing. 
 
 With blushing roses dallied. 
 Then kissed the jessamine's pale cheek. 
 
 Then to the myrtle sallied ; 
 The sportive waters plashed along . 
 
 In lively, prattling measure. 
 But in my ears tones sweeter far 
 
 Were 'wakening blushing pleasure. 
 
 A pair of soul-lit eyes on mine. 
 
 Were bent in earnest glances^ 
 And thrilling deep my heart of hearts. 
 
 The blissfuUest of fancies ; 
 And as the twilight o'er the earth 
 
 In Io-«ng dalliance lingers. 
 His story told, his hand sought mine. 
 
 And clasped my fluttering fingers. 
 
 I need not say my heart was won — 
 
 The stars looked dovm and listened. 
 And saw themselves reflected bright 
 
 In crystal tears that glistened i 
 In crystal tears like diamond dew 
 
 That seeks the heart of roses. 
 And brighter, fresher beauties there 
 
 Through liquid light discloses. 
 
 Those happy tears were kissed away. 
 
 While on the lashes trembling — 
 The mirrored lights of love and truth. 
 
 That mock all vain dissemblmg ; 
 
6o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Yes, blissful tears were kissed away. 
 
 And vows so sweet were spoken, — 
 Vows that we pledged ourselves should ne'er 
 
 While life endured be broken. 
 
 The future all before us then, 
 
 With richest colours blended ; 
 It was a dream, too much of heaven, — 
 
 As earth, the dream hath ended. 
 For sorrow came full soon to dim 
 
 My bright, ecstatic vision. 
 And death to pale with wintry chill 
 
 Those colours all Elysian. 
 
 The future gray before me spreads. 
 
 Its light is all beclouded ; 
 The beauteous visions of the past 
 
 In night are all enshrouded. 
 And musingly I wend my way. 
 
 And smile at present sorrow. 
 For life is but a day M most — 
 
 Eternity — to-morrow. 
 
 And there, beneath the trees of light, 
 
 And, by the crystal river 
 That floweth near the Throne of God, 
 
 Love will endure forever ; 
 No setting sun will darkness bring. 
 
 No last embrace be given. 
 For love will live while God is love. 
 
 And love was bom of heaven. 
 
 Since the war, Miss Brock has resided mostly in the city of 
 New York, engaged in literary work. Hers is one of those 
 earnest, sympathetic natures, thoroughly feminine, made search- 
 ing by thought, and rendered gentle by sorrow ; womanly to 
 the last grace of womanhood, and stirred into questioning 
 thought by the spirit-life that breathes throughout our age and 
 time. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 6 1 
 
 MISS EMMA ALICE BROWNE. 
 
 Although she has never published a book, Miss Browne has 
 given such unmistakable evidence of real genius as a poet, and, 
 besides, is so well and favourably known tlu'oughout the entire 
 South, that I feel no hesitation in according her an unquestioned 
 -right to mention among the living writers. She was born in 
 Cecil, Maryland, on Christmas day of 1840. Her fatlier was a 
 Methodist minister ; and she inlierits a poetical vein, being the 
 daughter of a poet, and a hneal descendant of Fehcia Hemans. 
 
 Coggeshall, in his Poets and Poetry of the West, says of 
 her, — 
 
 " Miss Browne is not afraid of out-of-door exercise. She is 
 an excellent shot, passionately fond of rambles in the deep 
 woods, and near laughing waters. She lives an impulsive, robust 
 life, and is remarked by all as a girl [written in i860] 'with no 
 nonsense about her,' such as 'wasting the midnight oil,' and 
 fretting her round, dimpled face into wrinkles on account of 
 some ' congenial spirit.' " That vigourous writer still further 
 says of Miss Browne, — "Her early home was on the Susque- 
 hanna River, at the head of tide-water; a wild and romantic 
 region, full of beauty, and the inspiration of poetry and daring. 
 Who shall say that the bold features of massive rocks, towering 
 forests, and rushing waters may not have fostered her genius, 
 and had much to do in the creation of her best productions ? " 
 
 A lady friend of the West speaks of her as of genial tempera- 
 ment, beautiful, a friend of 'Prentice, and of Miss Sallie M. 
 Bryan. When she first saw Niagara, " she burst into tears, and 
 covered her face with her hands." 
 
 She has contributed to many periodicals : the Louisville Jour- 
 nal, the Saturday Evening Post, the Ledger, Graham's Maga- 
 zine, the Methodist Protestant, and several others. 
 
 The following irregular, unrhymed verses, entitled Niagara, 
 1857, will serve two purposes; and I give them less as what 
 6 
 
62 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Miss Browne can do as a poet than as illustrative of her reach 
 of imagination and fervour of expression, — 
 
 Wild from his northern fastness 
 
 The loud, prophetic river, 
 
 Sowing the limitless fields of air 
 
 With his deep-voiced, infinite thunder. 
 
 Tramples the dark clifis underfoot 
 
 In his headlong, glorious mission 
 
 To the shaken hills, and the echoing caves. 
 
 And the gray, primeval forests. 
 
 Back from his awful forehead streams 
 The blossom of all the ages ; 
 The shaggy lengths of his hoary locks 
 Dashed wild against the headlands. 
 And wide on the rushing tempest sweeps 
 » His mantle of revelation ! 
 
 And, grasping the fadeless bow of heaven. 
 His shadowy hands are lifted. 
 Whilst he shouts in the dialect of the storm 
 To the cowed and trembling nations 1 
 
 The winds take up the mighty strain. 
 
 And the forests bow before it ; 
 
 And on the hoary-fronted rocks. 
 
 And the limitless brow of heaven — 
 
 In light, and shadow, and burning stars, 
 
 In the leap of the subtle lightning. 
 
 In the rainbow's smile and the sunset's dream — 
 
 Is written the broad translation. 
 
 And the green isles thrill with an inner sense 
 
 Of its awful rhythm — Jehovah ! 
 
 Alone, in his chainless might Sublime, 
 
 And grand as a frowning angel. 
 
 He pauseth between the vibrant crags, 
 
 Old as primeval darkness. 
 
 Shaking the hills with his psalm of strength 
 
 Like the voice of the resurrection ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 63 
 
 Whilst out of the hollow, abysmal font 
 
 Of the Universe he pouieth 
 
 The white, baptismal wine of God, 
 
 Distilled in the spheres of thunder, 
 
 On the penitent, upturned brows of earth. 
 
 Cooling her ancient fever ! 
 
 The following versicles deserve a place beside Stoddard's 
 . little Greek-like fancies, — 
 
 The water-lilies float the way 
 
 The tide floweth ; 
 So, to-day, 
 
 Down purple memories, far and dim. 
 My happy heart doth follow him 
 
 The way he goeth ! 
 
 The sunset's crimson cup, o'erfuU, 
 
 Stams the blue river 
 Beautiful ! 
 
 So is my nature's high divine. 
 In his rare nature's costly wine, 
 
 Rose-tinged forever ! 
 
 The above is called Aurdia, and is a happy illustration of 
 that Flash-like faculty of condensation and suggestiveness that 
 is so rare. 
 
 Alone is far more vigourous than either of the preceding, — 
 
 There is a sound in all the land 
 
 Of the vrind and the falling rain. 
 And a wild sea breaking on dead white sand 
 
 With a desolatff cry of pain. 
 As if its mighty and teiTible heart 
 
 Were heaved with a human pain. 
 I stand alone with the wind and rain. 
 
 As many a poet hath stood. 
 Soul-lit with the beautiful inner light. 
 
 And a sense of a higher good. 
 But feeling, because of the world, as if 
 
 My life were written in blood ; 
 
64 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 And my soul keeps sobbing a sorrowful song, 
 
 Like a brook in an autumn wood. 
 Blow wind ! blow wind ! fall, desolate rain. 
 
 And cry, oil, sorrowful sea ! 
 To the dumb, dead sand thy merciless pain, 
 
 For such has my heart for me. 
 Pitiless ! pitiless ! homeless and pitiless t 
 
 Such is the world to me. 
 
 These verses might have been written at Niagara, as well as 
 by the " sorrowful sea," since the utterance of the outer world 
 usually takes its tone from the voice of the soul within, — 
 whether it be buoyant as the triumphant shout of Niagara 
 to-day, or, as in utter darkness, deep as the wail of Niagara 
 to-morrow ! I am disposed to tliink tliat Alone is an echo of 
 that same thunderous harp of waters ; for I have myself noted, 
 through the changing phases of soul, as I stood by Niagara, the 
 changing voices that seemed to rise from that Babel of tongues 
 — all mute but the one that the soul was listening to hear. 
 
 JOHN DICKSON BRUNS, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Bruns was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 
 year 1836 ; and was educated at the Charleston College, for 
 which he was prepared by his father, a man of fine scholarship, 
 and large success as a teacher. While at college he took in his 
 junior year a prize for composition, and one for elocution ; and 
 in his senior year received a gold medal for the best oration. 
 He graduated with the first honour in 1854. He attended medi- 
 cal lectures in Philadelphia, and in Charleston; and in 1857 
 received his diploma as M.D. in the Medical College of the 
 latter. On this occasion, a special premium was awarded him 
 for the best thesis; he also won the college prize, — a silver 
 cup, — but was allowed to receive but one. He chose the 
 foimer. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 65 
 
 The same yea^ of feis graduation in medicine he purchased 
 the Charleston Medical Journal, which he edited with increasing 
 success and favour iintil the beginning of the war. 
 
 In 1858 he was elected Lecturer on Physiology in the 
 Charleston Preparatory Medical School, in which position he 
 lectured through both annual courses, summer and winter. 
 
 During the war, he was Surgeon of a General Hospital. 
 
 Upon the close of the war, he was elected Adjunct Professor 
 of the Practice of Medicine in the Medical College of South 
 Carolina. A few months later he visited - Europe, and pursued 
 some special studies in London. 
 
 In the fall of 1866, he was chosen Professor of Physiology and 
 Pathology in the New Orleans-School of Medicine, which chair 
 he now holds. 
 
 In addition to his professional writing, Dr. Bruns has con- 
 tributed both prose and verse to various Soutliern periodicals. 
 His letters from Europe to the Charleston Courier evince a 
 certain literary facihty and happiness of description that ar» 
 rare. While in Charleston, he, for a year or two, conducted the 
 book-table column of the same journal with eminent success as 
 a popular and appreciative "critic, and versatile analyst of both 
 matter and style. 
 
 Dr. Bruns has delivered two lectures on literary subjects be- 
 fore the public, — one in i860, ox^ Alfred Tennyson ; and one 
 jn 1868, on the Life and Genius of Henry Timrod ; the former 
 in his native state, the latter in New Orleans. Both were in a 
 high degree successful. 
 
 He enjoys the reputation of being one of the happiest men at 
 repartee, and the most brilHant talker of the day, being Words- 
 Avorthian sometimes in his monopoly of talk ; and is known as 
 one of the nicest and readiest quoters of Latin in the South, 
 having Horace at his fingers' ends. His special admirations 
 among the English poets are Shakspeare, Wordsworth, and 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The number of his lyrics and occasional poems is large ; the 
 6* 
 
66 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 best known being, Wrecked, Dead, The Christmas Hymn, 
 Schiller, and Charleston. His Legend of Santa Claws is a 
 pleasing poem of its class, and is the longest — over two hun- 
 dred verses — that I have seen. 
 
 The literary character of Schiller — the poem subjoined — 
 warrants me in quoting it entire. This character is twofold 
 pertaining to both the poet who sings and the theme he devel- 
 opes. No one of my readers will question my claim of interest 
 for this poem, — no one, at least, who has ever yielded himself 
 to the magic of Schiller's genius, — Schiller, the great hierophant 
 of the Beautiful, and the "direct ambassador of the Ideal" 
 No one can find this graceful tribute to " Germany's best 
 ^sthetician" uninteresting, — no one, at least, who has ever had 
 his soul called up from its human depths by the voice of that 
 vivifier of the hard truths of Kant ; who " would have man obey 
 his reason with joy." The poem, as a work of art, takes rank 
 with Sprague's Shakspeare Ode ; and will sufier little in com- 
 «panson with Halleck's Burns, although less polished, and infinite- 
 ly less popular in its subject. But Schiller, — 
 
 Schiller ! who, to that realm of art 
 
 Where breathes the pure ideal, 
 Hath borne us up on joyous wing, 
 
 Above this fettered real, 
 Until, on beauty's mountain-top. 
 
 The glory and the vision 
 Burst on the enraptured soul that hails 
 
 That fadeless light elysian. 
 
 Brave worker ! who hath nobly riven 
 
 These slavish bonds of sense, 
 And torn from falsehood's smiling face 
 
 The mask of mean pretence. 
 And taught us not the triumph won, 
 
 But the more glorious strife, 
 The eager race, and not the goal. 
 
 Is the true end of life. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 67 
 
 Through what dark years of bitter toU, 
 
 By lonely exile bought, 
 With torturing doubts, and hopes, arid fears, 
 
 And cruel fortunes fraught. 
 Thy patient spirit thou possessed. 
 
 And wore thy mortal guise. 
 Until, on lurid cloiids, the god 
 
 Rose to his native skies ! 
 
 So thou art strong to purify 
 
 Our hearts of low desires, 
 And kindle with thy flame of song 
 
 Our ineffectual fires ; 
 Where'er the falteruig reason halts. 
 
 To wing the soul to soar, 
 And ravisli with celestial sights 
 
 Eyes blindly sealed before. 
 
 But not for Wallenstein, though there 
 
 One well might dream he hears 
 Above the clang of clashuig swords 
 
 The sweet voice of the spheres, 
 Whidi to thy rapt communion first 
 
 Their solemn silence broke. 
 And by fair Jena's garden-tower 
 
 In mystic music spoke ; 
 
 Not for the wild, delirious life 
 
 With which the Robbers glows ; 
 Not for the brave, strong stream of Tell 
 
 Poured on his country's foes; 
 Not for Messina's lovely bride, 
 
 Rich with supernal beauty ; 
 Nor Orleans' martyred m.aid, who crowned 
 
 With death her life of duty ; 
 
 Nor yet for Carlos, hapless prince I 
 
 That dark and gloomy story. 
 We breathe thy name with household love 
 
 Which fame shall trump with glory ; 
 
68 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 And for thy regal brow, whereon 
 The lavirelled crown reposes. 
 
 Twine the immortal bays among 
 The myrtle-leaf and roses. 
 
 But groping through this shadow-land 
 
 Where wavering lights mislead us. 
 We bless thy glorious orb of song 
 
 Whose luminous shafts have freed us 
 From sensual glooms, and earthly thralls. 
 
 And passions base or lowly, 
 And gilded music's sweetest close 
 
 With meanings deep and holy. 
 
 I see the Youthful Diver plimge 
 
 Amid the seething main, 
 And from the whirlpool's awiiil depths 
 
 Lift the king's cup again ; 
 But tem'pting heaven for beauty's smile. 
 
 Not honour's noble guerdon, 
 The refluent wave comes roaiing back. 
 
 And brings no living burden. 
 
 Hear Ceres wailing for her child. 
 
 As still she sows, in anguish, 
 The golden tokens of a love 
 
 Which not even death can vanquish ; 
 And at the quick'ning touch of spring, 
 
 Their prison-gates unrolling. 
 Those buried symbols burst from earth. 
 
 The mother's heart consoling. 
 
 The avenging Cranes of Ibycus 
 
 Wheel clanging overhead, 
 While round the vast Corinthian stage 
 
 The fearful Furies tread ; 
 And, of that startled Isthmian criwd. 
 
 Swift judgment takes possession, 
 Who, from his murderers' ashen lips, 
 
 Catch the awe-wrung confession. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 69 
 
 The red-cross knight of Toggenburg 
 
 Kneels all the weary hovirs. 
 Watching, alone, with wistful eyes. 
 
 The foiir gray convent-towers ; 
 And from the lifted lattice-bar. 
 
 Within the cloister's pale. 
 His sweet nun, looking forth at eve, ■ 
 
 Bows meekly to the vale. 
 
 To fiery doom trips Fridolin, 
 
 Yet stays his beads to tell, 
 And while the good priest lifts the rood. 
 
 He swings the sacrist -bell. 
 The envious huntsman, spurring on 
 
 To glut his hateful rage, 
 Is thrust into the furnace-blast, 
 
 And God's hosts save the page. 
 
 Up through the crowded streets of Rhodes, 
 
 'Mid tumult of delight, 
 Groans the great Dragon, and before 
 
 Rides on the hero-knight ; 
 But, mute beneath the Master's word. 
 
 He learns, with reverent shame. 
 The Christian cross is never won 
 
 As meed of earthly fame. 
 
 And, while the magic pictures pass, 
 
 I scarce can bear the swell 
 Of rapture when I hear afar 
 
 Thy many-languaged Bell. 
 Its merry music ushers in 
 
 Bright childhood's golden morning, 
 And floats in heaven-born notes away. 
 
 As though all earth 'twere scorning. 
 
 And, oh ! with what a human love 
 
 Its silver tones are rife 
 When, passing from her father's door. 
 
 The bride becomes the wife ! 
 
7o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 It consecrates through all her days 
 
 Life's holiest emotions, 
 And rings each sacred Sabbath in 
 
 With call to pure devotions. 
 
 It clangs with fiercest fury when 
 
 The happy homestead's burning, 
 And mourns with solemn plaint the sire 
 
 To his long rest returning ; 
 And when all men in brotherhood 
 
 Of heartfelt concord stand. 
 It shouts the angels' song of peace 
 
 And good-will through the land. 
 
 God send it long to ring with these 
 
 Sweet messages of love, 
 And lift our earth-stained souls from strife 
 
 To his blest calm above — 
 To that ideal land, where faith's 
 
 Eternal foimtain springs. 
 And, standing by her native palms, 
 
 Peace folds her shining wings. 
 
 It is conceded on all hands, I believe, that the nearest perfect 
 art will please the popular taste less than lower grades of art 
 will. The reasons are apparent. But it is also true that popu- 
 lar appreciation is in itself an evidence of imperfect art. That 
 which is popular through appreciation of the many — not as 
 The Iliad, for example, through the traditions of interpreters- 
 is ipso facto known to be second-rate. The many appreciates 
 whatever it can. That which it can not appreciate may be 
 above its appreciation. This poem on Schiller I am free to 
 confess receives largely of its interest from ideas that lay about 
 the name itself, and in the memories it must everywhere awaken ; 
 much of the art of it, that is to say, lies in the selection of thfa 
 subject. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 71 
 
 MRS. MARY EDWARDS BRYAN. 
 
 Mrs. Bryan has not published in volumes yet, but the poet 
 that has written The Hour When We Shall Meet Again has 
 genius that entitles her to a mention among the living writers 
 of the South ; the more so that that genius has been employed 
 . in such editorial ways as to have made its mark upon the mass 
 of Southern readers. 
 
 Besides poems of the brilliant and passionate style, she has 
 written tales, essays, and editorials innumerable. Her writings 
 would fill two or three volumes. 
 
 She has been called the Norton of the South ; and perhaps 
 her genius is more akin to that of the author of The Undying 
 One than any other that we could point out, though there 
 flashes forth occasionally a something that makes one think of 
 Mrs. Browning. In this connection, I liiay mention as a char- 
 acteristic opinion, that Mrs. Bryan considers Aurora Leigh 
 " the greatest book of the age." 
 
 Mrs. Bryan is a daughter of Major J. D. Edwards, an influen- 
 tial planter, and a native of Florida. 
 
 When she was twelve years old, her parents moved to 
 Woodland, near Thomasville, Georgia. 
 
 At sixteen she was married to Mr. Bryan, a wealthy planter 
 of Louisiana. 
 
 At seventeen she returned to her father's home in Georgia, 
 and commenced her career as a writer for the literary press. 
 
 In 1859 she went to Atlanta, and became the editor of the 
 literary department of the Crusader, a temperance and literary 
 weekly. She edited that for about a year ; and wrote a great deal. 
 
 In i860 " the cloud which had so long brooded over her was 
 lifted, and a way opened for her return to her western home." 
 So says the author of Women of the South Distinguished in Lite- 
 rature. 
 
 Early in the war — soon enough to escape the rule of General 
 
72 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Butler in New Orleans — Mrs. Bryan returned to Georgia, as a 
 refugee from the rigours of the war in Louisiana. 
 
 Early in 1867 it was stated that Mrs. Bryan had just formed 
 an association with Mr. L. Duplex, in the editorial management 
 of the Natchitoches (Miss.) Times. 
 
 Mrs. Bryan has suffered. Suffering has perhaps awaked 
 powers which nothing else could have called forth. The gifted 
 of her sex have often suffered. Lady Bulwer did, and so did 
 the Hon. Mrs. Norton ; and Mrs. Southwortli, elsewhere men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The Hour When We Shall Meet Again is full of fervour; has 
 radier more passion than poetry in it, but enough of both to 
 make it a striking poem, — 
 
 " When shall it be ? " I see thy red lip now 
 
 Tremble with the low-spoken question, and thine eyes 
 Search mine, until I feel the hot tears flow 
 
 To the repressing lids. I answered then with sighs, 
 But I am stronger now — the hour is past. 
 
 And the blue billows of a tropic main 
 Break between thee and me. Look up ! — at last 
 
 I'll answer thee. ' Ay, we shall meet again. 
 
 Not in an hour which any tongue of Time, 
 
 Brazen or silver, may ring on the air ; 
 Not when the voice of streams in joyful chime 
 
 Summons young April, — shaking from her hair 
 Clusters of scented hyacinths, moist and blue 
 
 As thine own dewy eyes ; nor when the shade 
 Of whispering elms, of summer-ripened hue. 
 
 Bathes my hot brow in some sequestered glade ; 
 Nor when the autumn clusters of the vine 
 
 Hang purple in the sun, and the faint breath 
 Of brookside asters, and the moaning pine 
 
 Alike, and sadly, prophesy of death ; 
 Nor when I droop my weary head, as now, 
 
 Upon my hand, beside the winter hearth — 
 Shall thy quick step, thy kiss upon my brow. 
 
 Make me forget that ever grief had birth. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. IS 
 
 No, never more shall sunlight's golden sheen, 
 
 Nor the pale stars — a weird and watchful train — 
 
 Nor yet the moonlight, chiUy and serene, 
 Look on the hour when we shall meet again. 
 
 Yei we shall meet. Listen ! One winter day, 
 
 Standing where late the gentians were abloom. 
 You said when life's red current ebbed away. 
 
 That we should, like the flowers, sink to a tomb 
 Of dust and nothingness upon the breast 
 
 Of earth, whence we had drawn our sustenance. 
 And that tlie sleep would be eternal rest j 
 
 And then you met my anxious upward glance 
 And smiled, and sa;id that the mysterious scheme. 
 
 Which in the world's dim ages priests had spun. 
 Of life beyond, was but a dotard's dream. 
 
 And I believed you, for you were the Sun 
 To my imbudding soul ; but that is past. 
 
 I have talked with my soul in the still hours, 
 And with bared brow prayed in the temples vast 
 
 Which Nature rears, and when the dreaded power 
 Of Deatli had stamped pale foreheads, I have knelt 
 
 To catch the meaning in the dying eyes ; 
 And so have solved the mystery : I \a.ve.felt 
 
 Your teachings false ; the spirit never dies. 
 There is a world beypnd, and we shall meet — 
 
 The thought falls like a dead flower on my heart — 
 Meet only once — at the dread Judgment Seat, 
 
 Clasp hands, look in each other's eyes, and — part. 
 And part forever ! Oh, by all the years 
 
 My soul has kept thy memory enshrined. 
 By all my burning prayers, and by my tears. 
 
 And by the love to long despair resigned, 
 I charge thee let that single glance be kind — 
 
 Full of miuttered love as dying breath 
 Breathed out in kisses, when the arms entwined 
 
 Shall soon be severed by the grasp of death. 
 The gulf that then shall part us is more deep 
 
 And dark than death. Oh, let that last look be 
 One of immortal love, that I may keep 
 
 Its sacred memory ttoough eternity. 
 
 7 
 
74 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The following lines were written in the presence of a picture 
 of the convivial Greek, and are entitled Anacreon, — 
 
 Yon sea-like stretch of darkening pines 
 
 Is surging with the tempest's power. 
 And not one star of promise shines 
 
 Upon the gloomy hour. 
 With wailing sounds the blast is rife. 
 
 And wilder yet the echoes roll. 
 Up from the scenes wherfe want and strife 
 
 ConviUse the human soul. 
 'Tis madness rules the fateful hour — 
 Let me forget its fearful power ; 
 Drop low the curtains of my room. 
 And in the green and purple gloom, 
 lose sight of angry men and stormy skies. 
 Gazing, Anacreon, on thy splendid eyes. 
 
 My grand old Greek ! — far hack in Time 
 
 Thy glorious birth-hour lies — 
 Thy shade has heard the tread sublime. 
 
 Of passing centuries ; 
 And yet the soul that thrilled thy lyre 
 
 Has power to charm us still. 
 And with its vivid light and fire 
 
 Our duller spirits fill. 
 Breathe on me, spirit rare and fine. 
 Buoyant with energy divine. 
 The light and joy of other days — 
 JLive in those blue eyes' dazzling rays ; 
 They lift my soul from its confining cage. 
 The barriers of this dull and sordid age. 
 
 I dream I am a girl of Greece, 
 
 "With pliant shape and foam-white anps. 
 And locks that fall in bright release 
 
 To veil my bosom's charms. 
 The skies of Greece above me bend — 
 
 The jEgean winds are in my hair ; 
 I hear gay songs, and shoutings send 
 
 Their music on the air. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 75 
 
 I see a bright procession pass ; 
 
 The girls throw garlands on the grass, 
 
 And, crowned with myrtle and with bay, 
 
 I see thee pass that flowery way. 
 
 While swim before me smiling fields and skies. 
 
 Dimmed by one glance of those resplendent eyes. 
 
 Prince of the lyre ! thy locks are white 
 
 As Blanc's untrodden snow ; 
 But, quenchless in their fire and light. 
 
 Thy blue eyes beam below ; • 
 And well the myrtle gleams among 
 
 Thy locks lilce stars of truth ; 
 The poet's soul is ever young. 
 
 His is immortal youth. 
 He dwells within that border laud. 
 Ardent, yet pure, clasped hand in hand. 
 And years but add a nobler grace, 
 A higher charm to mind and face, 
 While Youth and Beauty that his dreams eclipse 
 Bend to the magic of hia eyes and lips. 
 
 Oh ! heart of love, and soul of fire. 
 
 My spirit bows to thee ; 
 Type of the ideals that inspire 
 
 My dreams etemsdly. 
 I'd be a slave to such as thou. 
 
 And deem myself a queen. 
 If sometimes to my kneeling brow 
 
 Those perfect lips might lean. 
 High thoughts and aims within my breast 
 Would start from their despairing rest ; 
 And the wild energies that sleep. 
 Like prisoned genii, might outleap. 
 And bid my name among the immortals shine. 
 If fame to me could mean such love as thine ! 
 
 Mrs. Browning, with her extreme independence of conven- 
 tionalities, could hardly have done better than that, in its way ; 
 and its way lies within the domain of true poetry, — a way that 
 
76 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 woman's higher delicacy of taste enables her to tread with less 
 danger than lies in man's path. 
 
 If I were called upon to indicate the poetess of the South 
 who stands first in vigour, passion, and imagination — as dis- 
 tinguished from fancy — I should name Mrs. Bryan. 
 
 JOHN W. BURKE. 
 
 Mr. Burke is a resident of Macon, Georgia, and is a native 
 of Ireland. He has written but one book that I am aware of, — 
 
 The Life of Robert Emmet, the Celebrated Irish Patriot and 
 Martyr, with his Speeches, etc. ; witli an Appendix, containing 
 valuable portions of Irish history. The work was published in 
 Charleston, about i860. 
 
 JAMES FITZ-JAMES CALDWELL. 
 
 Mr. Caldwell has produced but one regular book — The 
 History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, known first as 
 Greg^s, and subsequently as McGowari s Brigade — though 
 he has written a good deal in an occasional way for the periodi- 
 cal press. A series of letters, during a tour of Europe just 
 before the war, was well received, as well as were some poems 
 published about the same time. 
 
 Mr. Caldwell was an officer in the brigade whose historian 
 he is ; belongs to one of the best Scotch families in that State, 
 being a son of Chancellor James J. Caldwell ; is a graduate of 
 the South Carolina College; was born in Newberry District, 
 South-Carolina ; is a younger brother of the late Howard H. 
 Caldwell, poet and litterateur, and is to-day a lawyer, resident in 
 his native village. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 77 
 
 ADOLPHE CALONGNE. 
 
 M. Calongne occupies a position of much promise among 
 the Franco-American poets of the Crescent City. His most 
 widely known poems probably are a Hymne h la memoire de 
 Madame la Generale Beauregard, and two odes, — that ^ la 
 grande tragedienne italienne Madame Ristori, and that sur le 
 supplice de Maximilien. The last, the most recent, is freshest 
 in the minds of Southern readers. 
 
 M. Adolphe Calongne was bom in New Orleans on the nth 
 November, 1836. His early tastes lead him to literary pursuits, 
 but more imperative circumstances have determined for him the 
 pursuits of commerce. It is, notwithstanding this impediment 
 to free hterary activity, that M. Calongne has pursued poetry as 
 a recreation or a necessity ratlier than as a profession. He has 
 ready, and proposes ere long to publish, a volume of his spirited 
 poems in French. 
 
 CHARLES CAMPBELL. 
 
 The subject of this paper was bom at Petersburg, Virginia, on 
 the first of May, 1807, his father being John Wilson Campbell 
 of Rockbridge^ and his mother (nie) Mildred Walker Moore 
 of Chelsea, 
 
 Charles Campbell, after studying the ordinary English branches, 
 was for several years under the instruction of Peter Cooks, a 
 graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, who, although very eccen- 
 tric, misanthropic, and irascible, was an excellent classical 
 scholar, and a good teacher. After two years and a half at the 
 College of New Jersey, young Campbell graduated there in the 
 fall of 1825, and was one of those who took the first honour in 
 his class. He was a member of the Wliig Society. He subse- 
 
78 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 quently studied law, attended the law-lectures of Judge Henry 
 St. George Tucker, at Winchester, Virginia, and was licensed 
 to practise; but being strongly bent on literary pursuits, he 
 soon abandoned the law. His father was for many years a 
 bookseller in Petersburg, and, being a man of cultivated mind, 
 not only sold books, but read them. His bookstore was the 
 favourite rendezvous of professional and literary men ; and in 
 this way the son imbibed much of his taste for literature. He 
 has been engaged for many years in teaching. He was a fre- 
 quent contributor to the early volumes of tlie Southern Literary 
 Messenger of Richmond. He has been twice married ; first to 
 Miss Callaway of Tennessee, and second to Miss Burdsall of 
 New Jersey. 
 
 His published works are, — 
 
 1. The Introduction to the History of the Colony and Ancient 
 Dominion of Virginia. Published in Richmond, 1848. 
 
 2. The History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion, of Vir- 
 ginia. Published by Lippincott & Co. of Philadelphia, in 1859. 
 The author's father, John W. Campbell, was also the author of 
 a concise work on this subject, entitled The History of Virginia 
 from its Discovery till the year 1781, with biographical sketches 
 of all the distinguished characters that occur in the colonial, 
 revolutionary, and subsequent period of that history. 
 
 3. Some Materials to Serve for a brief Memoir of John Daly 
 Burk, author of a History of Virginia, with, Sketch of the Life 
 and Character of his only child, John Junius Burk. Edited by 
 Charles Campbell. 
 
 4. The Genealogy of the Spotswood Family in Scotland and 
 Virginia. Compiled by Charles Campbell. Privately printed. 
 
 5. Mr. Campbell edited The Blancf Papers, consisting of the 
 correspondence of Colonel Theodorick Bland, Jr. PubUshed in 
 Petersburg as early as 1843. 
 
 Mr. Campbell lives at present in his native city, Petersburg, 
 Virginia, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 79 
 
 L. PLACIDE CANONGE. 
 
 The term brilliant applies with perhaps more accuracy to the 
 literary genius and esprit of Canonge than to those of any other 
 litterateur of the South. And yet his nanie is almost unknown 
 even in the South. This arises from the fact that he writes only 
 in French, and thus limits the circle of his readers to about one- 
 tenth of the people of the United States. He is altogether a 
 poet, — has devoted his whole genius to that sphere of literature 
 — is a true poet both literarily and in his life. He inlierited 
 many of his fine qualities from his father. Judge J. F. Canonge, 
 who was highly appreciated in Louisiana ; partly for the great 
 legal abilities with which he discharged, during many years, the 
 functions of Judge of tlie Courts of New Orleans, but mainly for 
 the dignity and grace of his manners, and the shining elegance 
 and classic wit he displayed in conversation. 
 
 The poet-son, Placide, was born in July, 1822. 
 
 In the days of his youth, there was a grand battle being waged 
 in Louisiana between the Gallic and the Saxon tongues. The 
 universal Yankee had invaded the State, not only with his 
 wares and notions, which were very acceptable, but also with his 
 "harsh, northern, whistling, grunting guttural," which was not. 
 He strove to exclude the limpidly flowing language of la belle 
 France from the schools and the courts, from business and 
 society. The fight was fierce. The hostility was h Voutrance. 
 On the one hand it was "Down with the French!" and on the 
 other, "^ bas V Anglais I" In the natural course of events, the 
 French was of course doomed to go under ; but the intemperate 
 zeal of the respective partisans wrought the issues into those of 
 local politics. 
 
 In times Uke these, Placide Canonge grew up. 
 
 As a matter of course. Judge Canonge, the descendant of a 
 noble French family, and having all the riches and beauties of 
 the French authors of the eighteenth century at his tongue's 
 
8o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 end, although also an accomplished English scholar, sided with 
 the vernacular of his own race. Instead of sending his son to 
 an American or English College, he sent him to the Louis le 
 Grand College of Paris. 
 
 We have tlie result. 
 
 In 1839, Placide Canonge returned to New Orleans thorougMy 
 versed in the literature of the Romantic School of French Lite- 
 rature which glories in the names of such men as Victor Hugo, 
 Dumas, Lamartine, and a hundred other tlien rising stars in 
 tliat dazzling sky. He was imbued not only witli their literary 
 characteristics, but also with their radical politics and their pas- 
 sionate republicanism, — the impulsive spirit that had boiled 
 over in 1830 ; that was to rise to a deluge in 1848, and subsided 
 under the military despotism of the New Empire only to burst 
 forth again to-morrow or next day (?) in the grand political 
 deluge that is constantly imminent in Europe. 
 
 Burning with thoughts thus acquired, and realizing the impulse 
 of genius, young Canonge at once seized the pen he has wielded 
 with so much success. From 1839 to this day he has been 
 ceaselessly at work, adding successively fresh laurels to the 
 literary garland of his native State. Audubon, AUard, St. Cerau, 
 Lepousfi, and their compeers were just beginning to pass away, 
 and he aspired to be their worthy successor. 
 
 Twenty years ago, when he was yet volitating in the vestibule 
 of his literary career, a contemporary writer of New Orleans, — 
 M. Cyprien Dufour, — I am advised, in a small volume of Local 
 Sketches, thus touches our young poet, — 
 
 "La litt&ature d'aujour d'hui ressemble fort I. un bizarre 
 ocean. Les uns s'enfoncent tristement malgri tons leurs eiforts, 
 les autres sumagent I, tire de bras. En voici qui flotient et 
 s'avancent monumentalement — c'est le gfinie, inclinez-vous ! 
 En voilS, qui glissent 16g6rement sur la surface de I'eau comme 
 une troupe d'oiseaux aux ailes diapr6es — ceux-la sont les 
 hommes d'imagination. C'est parmi eux probablement que 
 M. Canonge se placerait, s'il entrait en plain dans I'oc^an." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 8 1 
 
 Time has done more for M. Canonge than M. Dufour 
 expected. 
 
 The drama was his chosen field. These are the chief of his 
 works, — 
 
 1. Le Maudit Passeport. A vaudeville,: performed in 1839 at 
 the Orleans Theatre. 
 
 2. Gaston de St. Elme. A tragedy in five acts; brought out 
 in 1840. 
 
 3. UAmhassadeur d'Autriche. A five-act drama. 
 
 4. Uh Grand d'Espagne. The same. 
 
 5. Histoire sous Charles Quint. The same. 
 
 6. France et Espagne. The same. 
 
 7. Comte de Monte Christo. The same. 
 
 8. Comte de Carmagnola. The same. 
 
 9. Qui perd gagne. A comedy. 
 
 10. Institutions Americaines. A series of essays, written 
 during the author's visit to Paris in, 1848, and published in 
 Girardin's newspaper. La Fresse, aimed at the parties then 
 discussing the famous Republican Constitution of that day. 
 The writer hoped to enlighten the French people on the true 
 principles of such work. The papers were quoted as authority 
 in the debates of the convention. 
 
 11. The Book for Mrs. Morph/s opera, Louise de Lorraine. 
 
 12. A translation into French of Helper's Nojoque. This is 
 a spirited reproduction of a spirited book. M. Canonge omits, 
 in translating it, quite a number of paragraphs ; some personal 
 and family matters in the introductory chapter; most of the 
 citations of authorities ; some apostrophes to the pope ; and all 
 the attacks upon Catholicism. He prefaces his translation with 
 an introduction, in which he makes a very fair resume of the 
 issues involved in tlie discussions upon the negro. He also 
 publishes a letter from Mr. Helper in whicli that author declines 
 to publish die meaning of the word Nojoque. En passant, I may 
 state that I have been informed that the word is of Portuguese 
 
82 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 origin^ and signifies something analogous to an oasis — some^ 
 thing pleasant with unpleasant surroundings. 
 
 I believe that all of M. Canonge's dramas have been pro- 
 duced in New Orleans, and all with merited applause. He is 
 the Sheridan of his day. Several of these plays were produced 
 upon the stage in Paris ; and Parisian audiences have shown 
 special favour to the Comte de Carmagiiola, which had there a 
 run of over a hundred nights. 
 
 The lyrics from time to time thrown oif would make a hand- 
 some blue-and-gold volume of real gems. 
 
 Our author has also contributed largely to journd,lism. : He 
 has edited quite a number of weeklies, — La Lorgnette, L En- 
 trade, U Impartial, Le Courier Franoais, Le Sud, and La, 
 Renaissance. To-day he is editing. L'Epoque, of which he is 
 also proprietor. 
 
 In person, Canonge has been favoured by nature. I have 
 never enjoyed the pleasure of meeting him, but a facile pen has 
 drawn for me this outline oih\i personnel, — 
 
 " In stature he is small, but well formed. His features are 
 classical, without a single faulty line ; and as soon as one 
 beholds his high, broad, smooth, perpendicular, beaming fore- 
 head, and large, lustrous, contemplative black eyes, the idea at 
 once suggests itself that he must be a poet." 
 
 He is a poet indeed — a real poet. Not one whose schooling 
 has only enabled him artificially to versify with taste and 
 correctness — to prepare elegant vers de society ynfh. swcztss — 
 but one whose words gush from the depths of the heart and 
 bloom into forms of passional and brilliant beauty. He thinks 
 clearly ; sees the creatures of his mind-creations distinctly ; and 
 hence, though brought up in the Romantic school of French 
 literature, his style does not partake of the vagueness of his 
 models. It is more logically precise than theirs, while it evinces 
 all the warmth and verve that characterize that school. 
 
 In addition to his literary attainments, our author is an actor 
 of the first order ; and not infrequently does he appear upon 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 83 
 
 the boards of the Orleans Theatre ; and, when he does, the 
 result is, that the critic who had assigned him the first place 
 among the dramatic authors of the day finds his rank higher 
 as a personator of his own heroes — a star actor — than when 
 he was viewed authorially. 
 
 I give a twin poem as illustrative of our author's lyric style ; 
 and prefer not to deteriorate its spirit and Ufe by translating, but 
 give it in the author's own musical and impressive tongue : — j 
 
 BRISE DU SUD. 
 
 (Ecrit en exil.) 
 I. 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, portes-tu sur ton aile 
 Un debris des tresors ravis a I'exile ? 
 Celle par qui je vis, oh 1 dis-moi, que fait elle ? 
 Sais-tu combien de pleurs de ses yeux ont couli ? 
 Rends la vie a men coeur qui meurt de ton silence, 
 Au-dessus de ma tote, 6 brise, arrdte-toi ! 
 Pour moi peuple un instant le vide de I'absence, 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, parle-moi, parle-moi ! 
 
 II. 
 Si ceux a qui je dois tant de douces ivresses. 
 Qui sur toute ma route essaimaient les bonheurs. 
 Si ces coeurs qui pour moi n'avaient que des caresses, 
 Ne se sont pas brisas sous le poids des doiileurs ; 
 Si bientot a la nuit doit succeder I'aurore, 
 Si la patrie en deuil reste forte en sa foi ; 
 Si le lion blesse ru^t et lutte encore, 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, parle-moi, parle-moi ! 
 
 III. 
 Mais si I'autel sacro qu'a genoux je revSre, 
 Par le dernier lavite Stait abandonne, 
 S'il fallait que le juste e^it encor son Calvaire, 
 Et qu' il ne restat rien du temple profane ; 
 Si pour tant de lieros et pour tant d'hecatombes. 
 Si pour tous ces martyrs immolis a leur foi, 
 Le ciel ne nous gardait que des croix et des tombesj 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, tais-toi, brise, tais-toi ! 
 
84 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Tu te tais, tu te tais ! mon esprit en demence 
 
 Par les spectres du doute, 6 brise, est agit6 ; 
 
 R6ponds ! fais-tu planer ton lugubre silence 
 
 Sur le cercueil beant de notre liberte ? 
 
 Non ! si Dieu s'oubliait au succSs de I'impie, 
 
 Nos martyrs lui criraient de leurs tombeaux : Pourquoi ? 
 
 Et Dieu nous armerait d'une seconde vie ! 
 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, parle-moi, parle-moi ! 
 
 LA BRISE M'A PARLE ! 
 
 I. 
 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, brise aux puissantes ailes, 
 Je t'ai dit : De ton vol suspends pour moi le cours ; 
 Parle moi du pays, conte moi des nouvelles 
 De ceux que j'ai laiss^s au nid de mes amours 1 
 Et tout & coup ton souffle a caressS ma tete, 
 II a sechd les pleurs en mon regard voilS, 
 Dans la nuit de mon coeur la lumiere s'est faite, 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, et ta voix m'a parld ! 
 
 II. 
 Et cette voix m'a dit : " Tu peux chanter, po6te ; 
 Ceux dont le saint amour rove de toi lS,-bas, 
 En baisant leur drapeau font face a la tempSte, 
 Dut-elle les briser, ils ne flSchiront pas ! 
 Mille Mros naltront pour un h^ros qui tombe ; 
 Dieu qui sauva Moise au Sud s'est r6v^le ; 
 II place quelquefois le berceau sur la tombe, 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, merci, tu m'as parle ! " 
 
 in. 
 Sur un fleuve de sang le berceau qui surnage, 
 Aujourd'hui porte encor un enfant surhumain ; 
 Le monde tout entier I'applaudit du rivage, 
 Mais pour le secourir, helas ! pas une main ! ! . . . 
 Qu' importe ! il lutte seul ; & son effort sublime 
 
 Le flot I'a reconnu, le flot a recul6 
 
 Et le berceau du Sud est sauv6 par I'ablme, 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, merci, tu m'as parlo 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 85 
 
 IV. 
 
 Du berceau que la vague a laiss6 sur la plage 
 Le Moise qui sort n'est plus un frele enfant ; 
 Au bapteme sacrf du sang et de I'orage 
 II a regu la taiUe et I'ame d'un gfiant ; 
 Son bras, armS par Dieu, terrasse, pulverise ; 
 Et brandissant aussi son drapeau constell^, 
 II atteint d'un seul bond ^ la terre promise ! 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, merci, tu m'as parl6 1 
 
 Canaan ! I'horizon a d6cliir6 ses voiles ; 
 Un cri d'ind^pendance a r^joui les cieux, 
 Et le geant qui porte ^ son front vingt 6toiles, 
 Sur le Nord demembr6 baisse un ceil dfidaigneux ; 
 Debout sur des tombeaux, il montre sa conquete 
 Au peuple qu'il fait libre et qu'il a console ; 
 PKaraon est vaincu ! tu peux chanter, poete, 
 Brise qui viens du Sud, merci, tu m'as parl6 ! 
 (Etats Cottfideris, 1864. J 
 
 J. N. CARDOZO. 
 
 Mr. Cardozo has written, as far as I am informed, only one 
 book, and that a small one, — Reminiscences of Charleston. Pub- 
 lished in Charleston, 1866. The author is, I beUeve, a native 
 and resident of that city. 
 
 AUGUSTUS B. CHANDLER. 
 
 This song-writer of the Crescent City was born in Vicksburg, 
 Mississippi, on the isth of February, 1839, and while yet a 
 youth removed to New Orleans. 
 
 He is a finished musician, and his first compositions for the 
 8 
 
86 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 piano were published with his earhest literary efforts, about ten 
 years ago. About the same time he entered the public schools 
 as a teacher, passing a most brilliant examination. Two years 
 later he was appointed principal of one of the largest schools in 
 the city, and has retained the position with ability ever since. 
 Passionately devoted to literature, a close student, attached to 
 linguistic pursuits, well skilled in the ancient classics, well read 
 in general literature, Walter Clyde — Mr. Chandler writes under 
 tliat nom de plume — enjoys a fine basis for literary pursuits. 
 In person he is of medium size, rather fiill, — having dark hair,' 
 brown eyes, and wearing full whiskers. Is a fine conversationist, 
 full of humour, fond of anecdote, excelling in descriptions, and 
 of ready repartee. The general tone of his literary compositions 
 is melancholy, or at least meditatively sentimental. Forgotten, 
 will illustrate the range of theme familiar to his muse, and serve 
 as a fair specimen of his songs, always so full of word-music : — 
 
 We loved each other dearly 
 
 In childhood's happy day ; 
 We twined our hands together 
 
 Amid our childish play ; 
 We joyed in gleesome laughter. 
 
 Once, o'er each other's joy; 
 We smiled and wept together 
 
 When we were girl and boy. 
 
 Far back through many summers 
 
 My spirit roves to-night. 
 Amid the fairy dreamland 
 
 When hopes were young and bright ; 
 I hear thy voice resounding 
 
 Along the shady lane, 
 I see thy small hand beckon 
 
 Across the meadow plain. 
 
 I start ! ah, 'tis a vision ! 
 
 Full twenty years have past 
 Since o'er the scented meadow 
 
 You beckoned to me last. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 87 
 
 How changed are we, and changing ; 
 
 Our hearts are full of pain ; 
 No more the golden gladness 
 
 Of youth may come again. 
 
 One hour ago I met thee 
 
 Amid a merry crowd, 
 And as you coldly passed me 
 
 My heart beat high and loud. 
 We once were friends together ; 
 
 We loved each other well ; 
 And why you have forgotten 
 
 The bitter world may tell ! 
 
 JULIAN J. CHISOLM, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Chisolm is a man of more energy, activity, and prac- 
 tical executiveness, perhaps, than any man of his profession in 
 the South. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 
 1 6th of April, 1830; graduated in medicine at the Medical 
 College of the State of South Carolina, in 1850 ; went abroad 
 in April of that year, spending most of the time attending medi- 
 cal instruction in Paris ; returned to Charleston in the winter of 
 185 1 ; was appointed to lecture in the summer school attached 
 to the Medical College, in the spring of 1852, as surgeon ; con- 
 tinued to lecture on surgery until the spring of 1858 ; was 
 appointed to fill the chair of surgery in tlie State Medical 
 College, in which he had graduated ; spent a great portion of 
 1859 i*^ Europe, and saw much of military surgery in the Mili- 
 tary Hospitals of Milan, from the wounded of the Italian 
 campaign with French and Italian troops against Austrians ; 
 and returned to America in time to take prominent professional 
 part in the war of secession. It was his thorough knowledge of 
 military surgery, acquired in the hospitals of Northern Italy, and 
 the absence of this practical knowledge in the Southern States, 
 
88 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 with the absence of all useful, practical books on the subject, 
 that induced him to prepare q.nd issue a work upon this subject. 
 A Military Surgery, which appeared in the fall of 1861, ran 
 rapidly through three very large editions ; became the chief 
 text-book of the Medical Department of tlie Confederate Army; 
 was in the hands of nearly every medical man in the Confede- 
 racy ; besides being freely read by many of the line-officers of 
 the armies. The work did much to carry out the aim of its 
 author — to aid in relieving some of the horrors of war, as found 
 in their most fearful form in the military hospitals. 
 
 Since 1852, Dr. Chisolm has contributed freely to various 
 medical journals. He has been from time to time called to fill 
 the chairs of surgery in several of the medical colleges of the 
 country. 
 
 He is to-day Professor of Military Surgery in the University 
 of Maryland, and Clinical Professor of Ophthalmic and Aural 
 Surgery. 
 
 Dr. Chisolm's handwriting is very rapid, acute, uniform,-^ 
 indicating directly tlie leading traits of his character, as already 
 mentioned. There is a high degree of self-reliance, earnestness, 
 and clear-cut thought shown in his chirograph, and withal a deal 
 of dash, and passion for progressive research. 
 
 MRS. MARIE LOUISE CLACK. 
 
 The following a,ppreciative notice from a New York literary 
 weekly, of Mrs. Clack's principal volume — Our Refugee House- 
 hold, — pubhshed in 1866, says the most that I know of the 
 book and the author : — 
 
 " The introduction of this accomplished lady to the public, 
 through this charming volume, is a pleasing illustration of that 
 subtle principle of adjustment and compensation which runs like 
 a golden thread through the stern Ibgic of events, and maintains 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 89 
 
 the integrity and harmony of nature and society. Prior to the 
 late disastrous war, this lady, in virtue of her personal accom- 
 plishments and social position, ranked among those who most 
 gracefully dispensed the elegant hospitalities of the Crescent 
 City. The close of armed commotion found her in the midst 
 of the wrecks of that society to whose refined intercourse her 
 talents ha3 conspicuously contributed, shorn of her husband (the 
 late Colonel Clack, who was killed at the battle of Mansfield) 
 and her property ' at one fell swoop,' and apparently utterly 
 cast down. But from these very circumstances of desolation 
 came a new birth. The vivacious woman of society, driven by 
 the spur of necessity, appeals to her pen, and the result is a 
 discovery which, but for her distress, would probably never have 
 been made by the public or herself, namely, that she has very 
 remarkable gifts of narration and description. The volume in 
 hand consists of a series of stories, conceived with striking origi- 
 nality, and dramatically evolved, which are strung upon a strictly 
 historical thread — the life, habits, privations, and sacrifices of 
 that portion of the people of the South who were driven from 
 their homes by the rigours of war, and sought shelter and security 
 wherever they were most likely to be found. The tales in 
 question are wrought with so much skill, that we venture to say 
 no reader at all appreciative of the charms of fiction can com- 
 mence the perusal of any one of them — we care not which may 
 be selected for the experiment — without reading on to its close. 
 In every case the simplest materials are employed ; but these 
 are combined in the interests of so original a plan, and told with 
 so much ai-t, that the attention of the reader is completely con- 
 trolled by the ranconteuse. The very titles of these tales are 
 suggestive, thus. The Marble Slab, Estella, Mrs. Desborough's 
 Secret, Leoline aud Romlind, &>€., and hint at their singu- 
 larly imaginative cast. The manner of the writer is sunple, 
 unaffected, easy, and graceful, — equally devoid of ambition 
 and dullness. The faults are those of a person not yet versed 
 in the merely mechanical graces of the pen, — trivialities which 
 
90 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 it would be almost invidious to particularize. We wish our 
 authoress every success in the new field on which she has so 
 felicitously adventured." 
 
 Besides this she has published a juvenile gift-book, under the 
 title of General Lee and Santa Claus. It appeared in 1866. 
 
 JOHN F. H. CLAIBORNE. 
 
 Colonel Claiborne is best known to the reading public 
 South by his Life of Quitman, notwithstanding the fact that its 
 appearg.nce at the beginning of the war very materially limited 
 its circulation. 
 
 Colonel Claiborne is the author of three works : — 
 
 1. Life and Times of General Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Par- 
 tisan, was published by the Harpers, in i860, and as a plain 
 portraiture of a strong western pioneer character it deservedly 
 stands high. The pathos that sometimes softens, and the wit 
 and humour that generally mark, such characters, are given with 
 vivid force and point. The book is a duodecimo of 233 pages, 
 illustrated. It had an extensive sale, and even in England 
 several hundred copies were ordered. 
 
 2. Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, Major-Gen- 
 eral U.S.A., and Governor of the State of Mississippi, in two 
 duodecimo volumes, illustrated with portrait and maps, appeared 
 from the press of the Harpers, in i860. It is, as far as practicable, 
 made up of letters and documents ; and yet the author has be- 
 stowed great care and labour upon the work. It is a better work 
 tlian the biography of Dale, — partly because the author wrought 
 con amore to a far greater extent, and partly because the mate- 
 rials in hand were better and more abundant. 
 
 3. History of the War of Secession. This work has not been 
 published yet, but is well under way towards completion. It is 
 to be the magnum opus of our author, who proposes to make it 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 91 
 
 'an elaborate and critical work, in everyway up to the standard 
 of the difficult subject involved. 
 
 Colonel Claiborne is a native of Natches, Mississippi-; was 
 educated in Virginia ; read law in the office of General Quitman ; 
 and at the early age of twenty years was elected to represent 
 his native county, Adams, in the state legislature, where he 
 served foxu: years. In his twenty-fourth year he was elected to 
 Congress by the state at lai-ge ; and at the expiration of his first 
 term was re-elected. He was, in all his political life, a democrat 
 of the purest water. His health not permitting his taking part 
 in political life further, he removed to New Orleans, and was 
 there connected with the press for several years. For the last 
 twelve years he has been a planter of sea-island cotton upon the 
 Gulf coast of Mississippi; and has resided for ten years at his 
 present home, — Bay St. Louis, in Hancock County,^— upon the 
 Gulf Shore. 
 
 As illustrative of Colonel Claiborne's style, I venture to 
 make a brief extract from his Life of Quitman. The individual 
 who figures most conspicuously as ' Colonel Davis in the nar- 
 rative, has figured since then so much more conspicuously on 
 another field as President Davis, that the incident has a historical 
 importance that may entitle it to our interest here. A writer in 
 DeBow's Review states that the movement then made by 
 Colonel Davis was without a previous parallel in the art of war, 
 and was regarded by the Duke of Wellington as new and mas-- 
 terly. But this is the extract from Colonel Claiborne's book: — 
 
 "The battle had been raging some time with fluctuating 
 fortunes, and was setting against us, when General Taylor, 
 with Colonel Davis and others, arrived on the field. Several 
 regiments, which were subsequently rallied and fought bravely, 
 were in full retreat. •O'Brien, after having his men and horses 
 completely cut up, had been compelled to draw off his guns; 
 and Bragg, with almost superhuman energy, -was sustaining the 
 brunt of the fight. Many officers of distinction had fallen. 
 Colonel Davis rode forward to examine the position of the 
 
92 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 enemy, and concluding that the best way to arrest our fugitives 
 would be to make a bold demonstration, he resolved at once to 
 attack the enemy, there posted in force, immediately in front, 
 supported by cavahy, and two divisions in reserve in his rear. 
 It was a resolution bold almost to rashness, but the emergency 
 was pressing. With a handful of Indiana volunteers, who still 
 stood by their brave old Colonel (Bowles), and his own regiment, 
 he advanced at double-quick time, firing as he advanced. His 
 own brave fellows fell fast under the rolling musketry of the 
 enemy, but their rapid and fatal volleys carried dismay and 
 death into the adverse ranks, A deep ravine separated the 
 combatants. Leaping into it, the Mississippians soon appeared 
 on the other side, and witii a shout that was heard over the 
 battle-field, they poured in a well-directed fire, and rushed upon 
 the enemy. Their deadly aim and wild enthusiasm- was irre- 
 sistible. The Mexicans fled in confusion to their reserves, and 
 Davis seized the comrnanding position they had occupied. He 
 next fell upon a party of cavalry, and compelled it to fly, with 
 the loss of the leader and other officers. Immediately afteir- 
 ward, a brigade of lancers, one thousand strong, were seen 
 approaching at a gallop, in beautiful array, with sounding'bugles 
 and fluttering pennons. It was an appalling spectacle, but not 
 a man flinched from his position. The time between our devoted 
 band and eternity seemed brief indeed. But conscious that the 
 eye of the army was upon them, that the honour of Mississippi 
 was at stake, and knowing that if they gave way, or were ridden 
 down, our unprotected batteries in the rear, upon which the 
 fortunes of the day depended, would be captiu-ed, each man 
 resolved to die in his place sooner than retreat. 
 
 "Not the Spartan martyrs at Thermopylse — not the sacred 
 battalion of Epaminondas — not the Tdith Legion of Julius 
 Caesar — not the Old Guard of Napoleon — ever evinced more 
 fortitude than these young volunteers in a crisis when death 
 seemed inevitable. They stood like statues, as frigid and motion- 
 less as the marble itself. Impressed with this extraor&iaiy 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 93 
 
 fiminess, when they had anticipated panic and flight, the lancers 
 advanced more dehberately, as though they saw for the first time 
 the dark shadow of tlie fate that was impending over them. 
 Colonel Davis had thrown his men into the form of a re-entering 
 angle, familiarly known as his famous V movement, both flanks 
 resting on ravines, the lancers coming down on tlie intervening 
 ridge. This exposed them to a converging fire, and the moment 
 they came within rifle-range each man singled out his object, 
 and the whole head of the column fell. A more deadly fire never 
 was delivered, and tlie brilliant army recoiled and retreated, 
 paralyzed and dismayed. 
 
 " Shortly afterward, the Mexicans having concentrated a large 
 force on the right for their final attack. Colonel Davis was 
 ordered in that direction. His regiment had been in action ^11 
 day, exhausted by thirst and fatigue, much reduced by the 
 carnage of the morning engagement, and many in the ranks 
 suffering from wounds, yet the noble fellows moved at double- 
 quick time. Bowles' httleband'of Indiana volunteers still acted 
 with them. After marching several hundred yards, they per- 
 ceived the Mexican infantry advancing in three lines upon 
 Bragg's battery, which, though entirely unsupported, held his 
 position with a resolution worthy of his fame. The pressure 
 upon him stimulated the Mississippians. They increased their 
 speed, and when the enemy was within one hundred yards of 
 the battery, and confident of its capture, they took him in flank 
 and reverse, and poured in a raking and destructive fire. This 
 broke his right line, and the rest spon gave way and fled back 
 precipitately. Here Colonel Davis was severely wounded." 
 
 MRS. MARY BAYARD CLARKE. 
 
 (hj^-K 
 
 Mrs. Clarke, nee Devereux, is a native of Raleigh, North 
 Carolina; and is identified, both by relation. and connection, with 
 some of the first families of that state. When quite young, she 
 
94 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 married Colonel William Clarke, a veteran hero of Mexican fame. 
 She is one of the most brilliant conversationists of her time, and 
 in this regard resembling Madame Le Vert far more than Miss 
 Augusta Evans. In person Mrs. Clarke is tall, slight, and fair, 
 — having soft silky hair, of a light brown hue, usually worn in 
 masses of glossy curls on the face ; mouth full and expressive ; 
 and eyes — they tell all the rest — "so clear, so bright, so blue, 
 and so full of mischief." 
 
 She is an accomplished linguist, and a true poet. Her favourite 
 nom de plume has been Tenella. Her literary works are : — 
 
 1. Reminiscences of Cuba. 
 
 2. Wood-Notes. Published in 1854. 
 
 3. Mosses from a Rolling Stone ; or Idle Moments of a Busy 
 Woman. This is a small volume of poems, published in Raleigh, 
 1866. The second title is a reference to the Busy Moments of 
 an Idle Woman, by Mrs. King, of South Carolina; and thorc 
 are said to be some striking points of similarity between the 
 ladies themselves. The epigraph of Mrs. Clarke's Mosses, is 
 from Emerson, — 
 
 " Tax not my sloth that I 
 
 Fold my arms beside the brook ; 
 
 Each cloud that floateth in the sky 
 
 Writes a letter in my book,'' — 
 
 and is expressive. The volume is a collection of poems that 
 have fallen during several years of busy leisure here and there, 
 from the mind and heart of the poetess, — one who has made 
 poetry a refuge and a recreation, a pastime and a pleasure. The 
 original pieces are almost all lyrics, written with great correct- 
 ness and taste. They breathe of affection, sentiment, passion, 
 and fancy, and are remarkably free from the affectation of gloom 
 and misanthropy so epidemic among versifiers, especially since 
 B3T:on's day. The tone is healtlay and hopeful' — healthy in being 
 hopeful and natural. The comparisons, similes, allegories, and 
 illustrations are frequently very fine, and they abound through- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 95 
 
 out the book. The concluding verses oi Aphrodite, gracefully 
 bringing the classic allegory of the Aphrodite Anaduomene down, 
 as it does, to the human and tlie vital, is exceedingly happy and 
 well conceived : — 
 
 But man the sliell too often holds, 
 Nor sees the beauty it enfolds ; 
 Its close-shut valves refuse to part 
 And show the depths of woman's heart. 
 And tossing on life'9'billows high 
 The purple shell unoped may lie. 
 Till cast on death's cold rocky shore. 
 Its life and longing both are o'er. 
 But, if love's warm entrancing light 
 Shall kiss the parting lips aright, 
 Aijd wake to life the beauty rare 
 Which nature's self hath.hidden there. 
 Beneath his soft enraptured smile 
 'Tis wafted to the flowery isle. 
 And Aphrodite steps ashore 
 A perfect woman — nothing more. 
 
 In La Purissima Conception, this couplet [p. 39] is very fine : — 
 
 To Sparta, from its glorious field Thermopylae sent one 
 To bear its message of defeat — the Alamo had none. 
 
 In Che Sara Sara, here [p. 78] is a bold'and strong motto : — 
 
 I hold the man with purpose high. 
 
 With firm resolve and still. 
 Hath in himself his destiny. 
 
 And moulds his fate at wUl. 
 
 There is a dash of display — ill-natured critics might call it 
 pedantry — once in a while visible. Latin, Greek, French, 
 Italian, and Spanish appear in turn, but never otherwise than 
 handsomely used. The translations are from Victor Hugo, De 
 Lamartine, Millevoie, Henri Auguste Barbier, A. V. Arnault, 
 Madame Amable Vioart Tastu,' Pietro Bembo, Metastasio, and 
 
96 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Dante ; and some called simply, From the German. They are 
 excellent, as translations go. 
 
 Besides these original works, Mrs. Clarke has executed a 
 couple of prose translations of stories from the French — Mar- 
 guerite, and Lady Tarticfe. She commenced an original story 
 in the Field and Fireside, — Chalmette, a tale of Creole Life in 
 Louisiana, — which was broken off midway. 
 
 She resides to-day at Boon Hill, near Raleigh, in her native 
 state. «• 
 
 HENRY MAZYCK CLARKSON, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Claricson is a native of South Carolina, having been 
 born in Richland District, of that state ; and was educated in 
 the State College; of that state. He received his diploma in medi- 
 cine from the Medical College of Charleston. 
 
 He has written occasional poems all his life, but rarely pub- ■ 
 lishes them. Since the war, in which he served with skill and 
 ability as a Confederate, he has written, and read on several 
 occasions before Southern audiences, a narrative poem of the 
 war, entitled Evelyn. This poem occupies about •'.n hour in 
 reading, and is a creditable production, in most respects. The 
 scene of the opening is in Italy, and the close amid the stirring 
 scenes of his native state in the last days of the Lost Cause. 
 Instead of giving extracts from such a poem, I prefer to give a 
 lyric, — The Death of the Maiden, — which I present entire : — 
 
 Thro' a forest sere and sober, 
 In the golden-clad October, 
 Autumn winds were softly sighing, 
 Sumnjer leaflets falling, flying, 
 
 Lj'inc;, dying everywhere : 
 I was wooing, slowly walking, 
 I was wandering, lowly talking, 
 (Ah ! it seems but yet so lately !) 
 With a maiden tall and stately. 
 
 With a maiden frail and fair. 
 
LfVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 97 
 
 How she lingered as she listened, 
 And her eyes with tear-drops glist&ned; 
 AH her brow and bosom blushing, 
 Came her words so gently gushing, — 
 
 "TaJte me, love me— I am thine !" 
 All ! those words were whispered lowly. 
 And that vow it seemed so holy. 
 As a vesper-psalm so saintly. 
 Falling sweetly, falling faintly. 
 
 As a psalmody divine ! 
 
 Sweet those moments of our meeting, 
 Sweet, tho' few and far too fleeting; 
 Halcyon hours of golden dreammg — 
 All of life with beauty teeming 
 
 In those glorious golden hours ! 
 Blissful were the thoughts we jjondered, 
 ■ Peaceful all the ways we wandered 
 Thro* the woods and meadows mellow. 
 Thro' the waving fields of yellow. 
 
 Thro' the sunny autumn flowers. 
 
 Came there sickness ; and in anguish. 
 Day by day I watched her languisli. 
 Watched her waning, watched her wasting. 
 Oh, the agony of tasting 
 
 Those mad moments of despair ! 
 Vain were all the arts of healing, 
 Blight was o'er her beauty stealing; 
 Vam my wailing, vain my weeping. 
 Cruel Death came creeping, creeping; 
 
 Caring not that she was fair. 
 
 After one long night of sorrow. 
 Ere the dawning of the morrow. 
 From the tapers dimly burning. 
 Softly to the maiden turning. 
 
 Something whispered, " She is dead ! " , 
 Doubting, fearing, still uncertain. 
 Dreading yet to lift the curtain, 
 Something seemed to hover round her ; 
 Angels, then, I knew had found her. 
 Knew I then her soul had fled. 
 9 
 
g8 LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. 
 
 From her lifeless form they tore me. 
 From her cold embrace they bore me. 
 But our souls they could not sever ; 
 We shall meet again forever. 
 
 Ay, forever, hand in hand ! 
 Time is flowing ! Time is flowing ! 
 On her grave the grass is growing, 
 Waves the willow o'er her, weeping. 
 But her sainted soul is sleeping 
 
 Sweetly' in the spirit-land. 
 
 Dr. Clarkson married a lady of Virginia, but lives in his native 
 state ; and is to-day engaged in the practice of his profession, 
 and in planting, — combining the two pursuits. His war-poem, 
 with others, is at this time announced to be soon published by 
 subscription, under the title of Evelyn, and Other Poems. It is 
 to be published by Duffie & Chapman, of Columbia, S. C. 
 
 HENRY CLEVELAND. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland made his debut at authorship, if such it may be 
 called, in getting out, in 1866, a volume entitled Alexander H. Ste- 
 phens, in Public 'and Private; with letters and speeches before, 
 during, and after the war. The introductory essay by Mr. Cleve- 
 land, upon the life and character of Mr. Stephens, is characterized 
 by a northern critic as "a poorly-written, undigested, and ill- 
 proportioned essay, which is laudatory to tlie extreme of 
 sycophancy." The style of this introductory paper is what is 
 usually called western, — turgid, inflated, and ambitious to a 
 degree. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland is, I believe, a Georgian. He has written no 
 other works. 
 
LfyiNQ WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 9.9 
 
 MRSr CLARA COLE. 
 
 Clards Poems, a neat volume of miscellaneous verse, was 
 published by a Philadelphia publishing-house, in 1861. The 
 author lives at Nashville^ Tennessee. Dr. Edgar, who wrote the 
 Introductory to her volume, says" of her: " She is truly retiring, 
 and as delicate in her claims to attention as she' is in the sweet 
 images whicli are so meekly and tcJuchirigly conspicuous in many 
 of the more tenderly pathetic of her pieces. • • . The school 
 in which many of her most impressive lessons have been taught 
 has been that of disappointment and sorrow." What these 
 austere teachers have used in their tuition nowhere appears, but 
 they are dwelt upon m imany passages. Of her poetry, the same 
 writer says : " It will be seen that the great charm of her 
 verses is found, not in their classical allusions or romantic 
 imagery, but in the simple appeals which they so vifinningly make 
 to all that is inartificial, uncorrupted, truthful,, and responsive in 
 the more pure and gentle emotions of every unsophisticated 
 heart. She has had no learned resources from which to draw 
 her inspirations." 
 
 The volume went forth without any pretension to literary or 
 artistic finish, and it really had very little claim in that direction. 
 The author herself says of her poems that she sent them forth 
 " like tender, timid birdlings, from their sheltered nest, through 
 the ' wide, wide world,' — feeling well assured that those who 
 have drunk life's bitter cup as deeply as I have done, will re- 
 ceive and welcome them with loving sympatliy, and true 
 Christian indulgence.'' 
 Which puts the issue upon the right ground. 
 1 a^oX& First Love, as a poem open to as little objection upon 
 artistic considerations as any. in the volume:— 
 
 My first love and my dearest. 
 
 Thy name awakens still 
 The scenes of other days that mal^e 
 
 This heart with rapture thrill. 
 
100 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 For though long years have passed away 
 
 Since on thy noble brow 
 I've gazed, yet still in memory's glass 
 
 The same I view thee now. 
 Unchanged that soft and pleading glance 
 
 From those dark eyes of thine ; 
 Those thrilling words again I hear, — 
 
 "Say, love, wilt thou be mine?" 
 And oh, thy form is ne'er forgot, 
 
 Thy bland and vanning grace ; 
 Oh, no ! 'tis graved upon my heart. 
 
 And time can not erase 
 One look of thine in those sweet hours 
 
 From care and sorrow free. 
 When hope had strewed our way with flowers 
 
 And thou wert all to me. 
 And though I've passed through varied scenes. 
 
 And sad has been my lot. 
 Yet the memrtry of my early love 
 
 Has never been forgot. 
 Though some may say that second love 
 
 Has more of strength and truth. 
 Yet give to me, undimmed by tears. 
 
 My first sweet dream of youth. 
 
 I select these lines from the middle of the volume; and 
 from their occupying that place, we infer that they were not 
 written in the author's early youth; though there are several 
 reasons in the verses themselves for thinking that they were. 
 
 T. WHARTON COLI^ENS. 
 
 Judge CoLLENS has written in a variety of styles for the periodi- 
 cal press — verses, essays, and polemics. The verses came from 
 a youthful brain ; the essays belong to a riper age ; while the 
 polemics date through both periods. He has thus far written 
 two books, of widely diverse characters. These are : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. loi 
 
 1. The Martyr Patriots. A tragedy in five acts, written in 
 1833, and published a few years later. In 1836, or 1837, it was 
 performed at the St. Charles Theatre, in New Orleans, with great 
 applause. This appreciation was due in part, it may be, to the 
 fact that the subject of the tragedy touched a lively chord of 
 local and popular feeling. It celebrates the deaths of Villere 
 and Lafreniere, who, in 1759, resisted the transfer of Louisiana 
 from France to Spain, and were shot for their rebellion. 
 
 2. Humanics. This is a handsome octavo of 358 pages, pub- 
 lished by D. Appleton and Company, of New York, in i860. 
 This date accounts for the fact that the South heard so little of 
 the book until since the war. "Humanics," says the author, 
 "is the science of man;" that is to say, the 'science of human 
 nature. It treats of man, as distinguishable ftoro all the rest of 
 animate and inanimate nature, in his differentia from everything 
 else. The author sets out with the purpose of distinguishing 
 clearly between Humanics and Philosophy. "Humanics," he 
 says, "brings all truth to bear upon man; seeks to prove his 
 title to all that is peculiarly his own ; makes him the focus of 
 intellectual vision. Philosophy, on the contra;ry, gathers all 
 truth, to generalize independently upon all existing things; 
 seeks to find the common property of all existences and phe- 
 nomena ; displays the light of an intelligence all over the Uni- 
 verse." This ' anthropological unit is then discussed in its 
 Vitality, Sensation, Emotion, Thought, and Action. It would, 
 of course, in a space such as my present plan admits, be im- 
 practicable to present an analysis of the work that would be of 
 any value to the reader. The general field of thought in which 
 this author has laboured, is that in which the subject of it — man 
 himself-^ has always taken the profoundest interest. The 
 special direction' of tliis work seems to be that which, in a some- 
 what obscure way, was indicated by Locke ; was grasped and put 
 into more tangible form by Cdndillac ; is to. be tecognized in La 
 Place ; is the watchword of Comte ; and is to-day the theme of 
 Herbert Spencer, — positivism. Comte enumerates and defines 
 
 9* 
 
I02 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the pure sciences, six in number, which comprehend all human 
 knowledge, — mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry,- biol- 
 ogy, and social science, — which meets all the conditions of a 
 perfect philosophy [ — dont I'ensemble, ordonn6 en syst^me, 
 doit satisfaire toutes les conditions d'une bonne philosophie]. 
 This author appears to blend the last two, and to comprehend 
 the greater part of both in his ffumanics. 
 
 Those fully interested in this domain of speculation will find 
 Humanics compact in thought, and in a high degree suggestive 
 and instructive. ' 
 
 Latterly this author has written, occasionally in periodicals, 
 mostly upon sociology and kindred subjects. 
 
 Judge CoUens was born in New Orleans, on Tuesday, the 23d 
 of June, i8i2. His lineage is half Anglican and half Gallican, 
 his mother being French. The printing-office was his seminary 
 of learning. At .twenty-one he became editor, but gave_ up 
 that honourable position to study law ; and since then has been 
 Reporter and Clerk of the State Senate (1834); Clerk of the 
 United States Court (1836); Editor again (1837); District- 
 Attorney for Orleans District (1840); Judge of the Presiding 
 City Court (1842); Practicing Lawyer (1:846); Member of the 
 State Convention (1852); and Judge of the First District Court of 
 New Orleans (1861). 
 
 In 1862, though he had strenuously opposed secession, he 
 took the fortunes of the Confederacy, and retired from the city 
 upon the advent of Butler. 
 
 Since the war he has returned to New Orleans, and betaken 
 himself assiduously to die practice of law. His clientele is 
 large. 
 
 He is to-day re-writing a series of Lectures on Political Phi- 
 losophy, prepared just before the war, for tlie University of 
 IjOuisiana. 
 
 In the domain of belles-lettres Judge CoUens sometimes seeks 
 recreation. The following poem^-Zzwj to the memory of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH.. 103 
 
 Father Turgis — is given as illustrative of his style in that 
 line : — 
 
 March weaponless and think of God, 
 Miiffle the roll of war's tamhouVy 
 
 Dig me a grave beneath the sod. 
 And have me buried with the poor. 
 
 So spoke the holy priest and died. 
 Let no mausoleum rise in pride 
 O'er where his sacred bones repose^. 
 But mark the liumble grave he chose 
 With the Redeemer's cross of wood — 
 Glorious, though 'tis low and rude. 
 
 No sword bore he 'nudst battUng hosts ; 
 Vet when the lines of bayonets 
 Met, with their deadly clash and thrust. 
 When howling balls and whizzing bullets 
 Swept, gathering harvest o'er the pl^in. 
 There, 'mong the wounded and the dain. 
 While boomed the deep artillery. 
 While blazed the rattling musketry, 
 "While fire and smoke rose roimd the brave, — 
 While mingled blood of friend and foe 
 
 Gushed out with groans of death and woe, 
 
 There went the Christian priest to save, 
 To save — toi bring the bread of life : 
 Reclaim, a .soul from hell and strife. 
 
 From bleeding form to bleeding form. 
 Resigned, devoted, throngh the storm, ■ 
 Seeking God's own, here, there he ran. 
 This gentle one, this unarmed man; 
 Fearless he strove, nor prayed release. 
 This Chieftain of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 Father ! haste thee from this deadly field: 
 Leave us in our blood — there is no shield 
 To screen thy holy breast. Farewell ! 
 
 — Nay, nay ! my son, for here I tell 
 • Of him who lifts a living soul 
 
 From dying flesh ; and to the goal 
 
I04 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Of heaven's glory bears it up 
 
 To diink of His eteraal cup. 
 
 Come ! list of Christ the pressing call ! 
 
 Think not of me ; for, if I fall, 
 
 Our comrades, flushed with victory. 
 
 On morrow's dawn, in triumph's glee, 
 
 Will bear us hence with thoughts of God. 
 
 Muffle the clang of war's tambour. 
 
 Dig us a grave beneath the sod, 
 
 And leave us buried with the poor. 
 
 Yea, with the poor, the blessed ones. 
 Whose hearts yearned not for woildly wealth ; 
 But cheerful hoped for heavenly tlirones. 
 And diedunknown to all the earth. 
 
 No records here their memories keep. 
 Their graves deserted none can tell ; 
 But when on clouds comes Jesus bright. 
 When the proud men shall sink to hell. 
 The levelled ground where now they sleep 
 WiU burst with rays of dazding light, 
 Aiid let their shining bodies rise 
 To meet their Saviour in the skies. 
 
 Follow this humble corpse, ye braves. 
 With whom 'tvras once a tender, cheering friend — 
 A voice that told the truth that saves — 
 A hand that led where honour could attend. 
 Foljow ! ye chiefe and men of fame. 
 Follow ! ye mothers of the dead. 
 Follow ! his name outshines your name — 
 Hi? meek and venerable head 
 Has won a fairer wreath than yours : 
 YoufS of country, his of heaven ! 
 Follow I while forth his spirit soars 
 Triumphant, to its higher haven. 
 Follow, unarmed, and think of God, 
 Muffle the beat of war's tambour. 
 Dig him a grave beneath the sod. 
 And leave him buried with the Poor. 
 
 His chirograph is regular and elaborate, which characteristics 
 indicate a habit of deliberate and meditative study ; accuracy in 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 105 
 
 general without nicety in detail ; presenting the paradox of inac- 
 curacy (in detail) resulting from unusual carefulness or absorp- 
 tion (in the general). 
 
 *^ ^\.s*^ 
 
 JOHN ESTEN COOKE. J^ 
 
 ' Captain Cooke is a native of Winchester, Virginia ; and was 
 born there on Wednesday, the 3d of November, 1830. He is a 
 younger brother of Philip Pendleton Cooke, the poet, and author 
 of Florence Vane. His father was John Rogers Cooke, Esq., 
 in his day an eminent lawyer of the Old Dominion, who moved 
 from Winchester to Richmond when his son, our author, was 
 nine years old. Captain Cooke is a younger son, and was edu- 
 cated, I believe, at the University of Virginia. He was, before 
 the war, a lawyer of Richmond and a litterateur, — more successful 
 probably, certainly more distinguished, in the latter capacity. 
 Since the war, I beheve, he is living in Winchester, but spends a 
 good deal of his time in New-York City, seeing to the publication 
 of his recent works. In literature he has wrought in three de- 
 partments, — fiction, poetry, and biography, — and with some 
 success in all, though his distinction is in fiction. He stands 
 well among the novelists of our country ; not so voluminous as 
 Simms or Cooper, but ranging with them in the quality of much 
 that he wrote years ago, before haste had impaired his style ; and 
 standing, in some respects, with Washington Irving and Haw- 
 thorne, not greatly inferior to either. 
 
 During the late war he entered service as a private ; and later 
 served on the staffs of Generals Stuart and Pendleton, with ability 
 and gallantry always. He was paroled in tlie surrender of Lee's 
 army at Appomattox CourtTHouse. 
 
 His published works, except those scattered in periodicals, are 
 the following : — 
 
 I. Leather Stockings and Silk, or Hunter John Myers and His 
 
lo6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOVTff. 
 
 Times. A Story of the Valley of Virginia. Published % the 
 Harpers, New York, in 1 85 3 or 1 8 S4. The leading character, — 
 Hunter John Myers, — is a sturdy, stalwart, rude, natural man, of 
 plain, uncultivated habits, and manly style, in the good old pro- 
 vincial times; and around him are 'thrown many domestic 
 personages of culture and interest. The scene is the Valley of 
 the Shenandoah, principally about Martin sburg. 
 
 2. The Youth of Jefferson, or a Chronicle of College Scrapes at 
 Williamsburg, in Virginia, A. D. r764. This appeared in 1854. 
 It is a love-story of those early times, based upon a few hints of 
 tradition, and a few passages in the early letters of Mr. Jefferson. 
 It is replete with elegant portraiture, and partakes largely of the 
 author's characteristic tone, — cheerfulness and spirit, pouring the 
 sunshine of sentiment over the playful strearri of vivacity. 
 
 3. The Virginia Comedians, or Old Days in the Old Dominion, 
 edited from the MSS. of C. Effingham, Esq. This also- appeared 
 in 1854, and is also a story of colonial or pre-revolutionary 
 times, dating about the middle of the last century. The prin- 
 cipal scene is an old manorial homestead near Williamsburg, 
 on James River, and the characters are the better folk of those 
 times. Beatrice Hallam, the heroine, — the leading actress of a 
 company of comedians, — has been styled " one of the most strik- 
 ing, truthful, and loveable characters in modern fiction." But • 
 several of the other characters are drawn with equal care. It is 
 a charming book, and eminently Southern. A Northern critic 
 has said of it: "The whole book is redolent of youth and poetic 
 susceptibility to the beauties of nature, the charms of woman, 
 and the quick movement of life." The success of the book was 
 very decided^ and induced the author to lay aside the anonymous, 
 and to appear thenceforth under his real name. 
 
 4. Ellie, or the Human Comedy, appeared in 1855. The scene 
 is in Richmond. The life in which it deals is botb high and low. 
 The girl-heroine is intended to illustrate the author's theory of 
 heart-goodness — the beauty of a pure young life — that is very 
 attractive, but perhaps a trifle hyper-sentimental. The authoi's 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 107 
 
 design, in this portraiture, was, as he expresses it himself, "to 
 show how a pure spirit, even though it be in the bosom of' a . 
 child, will run through the variegated woof of that life which 
 surrounds it, like a thread of pure gold, aftd that all who come in 
 contact with it will carry away somefliing to elevate and purify 
 them, and make them better." 
 
 5. Estcourt. This novel appeared in serial portions in i?MJJif//' J 
 Magazine, '\%i\xsA. in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1858; but 
 believe has never been published in book form. 
 
 6. JBenry St. John, Gentleman; A Tale of 1774 — '75, ap- 
 peared in 1859. This again is a tale of pre-revolutionary days, 
 located principally in the county of Prince George, Virginia, 
 and is full of the fire and iron of those times. A Southerti critic 
 has pronounced this " by ^reat odds, the best American historical 
 novelj" and there are weighty reasons for the opMon. The 
 strong characters are very strong, but are never indecent, grossly 
 profane, or otherwise shocking in tfre'ir language) The author 
 has the faculty of showing you this kind of people without quot- 
 ing the tpsissinia verba of their blasphemy or smut. In this. 
 Captain Cooke differs from Dr. Simrris, of South Caroliha, in 
 whose hands Smith and Muggins follow the example of " our 
 army in Flanders. " The style in general is graceful, facile, and 
 often elevated; and is a fair specimen of Captain Cooke's 
 literary style. 
 
 7. Surry of Eagle' s Nest, or the 'Memoirs of a Staff-Officer 
 serving in Virginia, appeared from a New-York publishing-house 
 in 1866. The story is felt to be, though of course, in strictness, it 
 can not be, autobiographical. The hero. Colonel Surry, does the 
 same kind of military service as Captain Cooke did ; but we pre- 
 sume the personal identity ceases here, though the events through 
 which the story irioves are historical. We have that iron-willed 
 and self-absorbed hero of the Valley, Stonewall Jackson ; the gay 
 and gallant Stuart ; the dashiilg a«d impulsive Ashby ; and the boy 
 hero, " our young Marcellus," Pelham. These as historical cha- 
 racters; but ara'Ofig them moves the hero. Colonel Surry, and the 
 
io8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 proud May Beverly,, Mprdaunt, and die charming Viplet GraJtton, 
 and a good villain, Fenwick. It is a charming book, a.n4 clears 
 up much of the fog that had gathered around these characters 
 in the uncertain tradition of newspapers. While Surry of Eagles 
 Nest is Captain Cooke's most entertaining novel, it is not his 
 best ; but the time, the opportuneness of its appearance, gives it 
 the advantage oyer all in the jijatter.of populivrj-ty. 
 
 8. lAfe of Tfiomas Jmathan Jackson (Stonewall Jackson). 
 This biography has appeared since the preceding, — some tiinp, I 
 believ:e, in, July, i866. A good deal tliat is, historical iiij-Swrrj' 
 of Eagles Nest, is reprpduced in the Life of Jackson. . I say 
 "reproduced," advisedly ; and those who have read both volumes 
 will clearly see what I mean by it. Both these works appear to 
 have been written ' or in part written ' during the war. A Life of 
 Jackson was published during the war, in the South, and repub- 
 lished in )Jie North, — there attributed to John M. Dai;iiel,,^theii 
 of the Examiner. Xbat Life and this are said to be the same. 
 I .have »ot both, to compare them. 
 
 , 9. Wearing the Gray — ahandsomely illustrated octavo of over 
 600 pages, appeared in the spjing of 1867. .It consigts of sketches 
 of prominent leaders in tii^ Confederate Armies,— r of persoijal 
 portraits, stirring scenes, and war-haps of every exciting kind. The 
 lepigrajdi of this volume embraces a few sentences from the pen 
 of Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, and conveys the spirit of the 
 .work : ".The. blessed and e.y^-glorious dead are not herg to 
 defend their memories from the taint of the reproach of rebellion 
 and treason. AJas ! I am alive and here, and am bomid at every 
 hazard to declare that these men were no rebels and no traitors ; 
 tiiat they were true patriots, loyal citizens, well-tried and^ true 
 soldiers, brave, honest, devoted men, who proved, their .faith in 
 their principles by the deaths which canonized them immortal 
 heroes, and martyrs." 
 
 10. Heroic Women of tjie South. Tljiis work was announced 
 in. 1867, as in preparation, to be ready in a,(e,w months; but 1 am 
 not aware that it has yet appeared, and believe it has not. jlje 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 109 
 
 title indicates the scope of the book, — the instances to be gath- 
 ered from the records of the late war of secession. The material is 
 ample, and it is expected that Captain Cooke will produce a 
 book of marked merit and deep interest. 
 
 1 1. Lee and His Lieutenants, appeared in 1867, It is a large 
 octavo, illustrated ; and is written with evident haste, — apparently 
 hurried into market to meet a demand for that grade of war- 
 book. The main fault, after haste, that the critics found with 
 this work, is one that attaches in a greater or less degree to all 
 Captain Cooke's historical works, — an undue expansion and 
 importance given to everything Virginian. It is as if he were 
 too ti6ar such objects, and the eye necessarily takes in a micro- 
 Scope outline. One gatheis the idea that many things of equal if 
 not greater importance than some mentioned, have been omitted, 
 because covered, so to speak, to the eye of the narrator, by some 
 intervening Virginian object. I am wholly unwilling to inti- 
 mate the slightest depreciation of the OldJJominion, — its deeds, 
 its heroes, its gentlemen, its women, or aught that is its, — but 
 the reading public may be excused for becoming restive under 
 the implicit depreciation of everywhere else, even though so 
 noble a state as Virginia be the gainer. 
 
 12. Fairfax; or the Master of Greenway Court: a Chronicle 
 of the Valley of the Shenandoah, — appeared from the press of 
 Carleton & Co., of New York, in 1868. This novel is perhaps 
 the most hastily gotten-up of all Captain Cooke's similar works. 
 To say that it is thoroughly, if not intensely Virginian, is the 
 highest praise I feel free to bestow upon it. That truthfulness 
 to nature is its best feature. It claims to be "a picture of wild 
 life on the border, the superstitions and adventurous incidents, 
 Indian combats, passions, habits, manners, etc.; of the period." 
 It is pretty feiirly true to this claim ; for " wizards, gloomy barons, 
 French dancing-masters, fair young maidens, lamiae. Christian 
 big-Injuns, savage half-breeds,' secret panels, mysterious packa- 
 ges, blood, thunder, duelling, and desperation, are thrown into the 
 
 10 
 
no LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 cauldron, stirred with a pen, and spiced with, genuine love for the 
 grand old Blue Ridge and romantic Massanutten." The pbt, 
 however, is not complicated j and the strength of the fiction lies, 
 as it does in most of this writer's books, in the rapid action and 
 in the spirited episode. There is everywhere a want of elabo- 
 rate polish and careful art-study. The stirring times portrayed, 
 it is true, demand less of these than would be available in 
 spheres where mere action was less the characteristic of the life. 
 The period is the early history of that country, when Earl 
 Fairfax was a "wonder in Colonial Virginia, and George Wash- 
 ington was not yet "a fool to fame," — when savage and settler 
 often yet did bloody battle over their personal issues. Critics 
 have found fault with the author for introducing the great 
 Washington, though only as a promising young man, into the 
 field of fiction, claiming that the character is too high and sacred 
 for such manipulation. This objection strikes me as simply 
 absurd ; and is a symptom of such abject hero-worship, that the 
 surprise one feels at meeting it at this day is modified by disgust. 
 Captain Cooke's use of Washington appears to me both proper 
 and creditable to the book, viewed as a work of art. But the 
 work as a whole is hasty, and bears marks of having been hurried 
 up beyond the natural and graceful speed of the writer. It is 
 less than the earlier successes of Captain Cooke warrant us in 
 expecting. The Round Table pays the following pleasant tribute 
 to the character of this book: '"Mr. Cooke is particularly 
 happy in his delineation of certain quaint phases of life, of 
 which the period he has selected to write about furnishes some 
 curious examples. His descriptions of scenery are likewise very 
 good, and his Indian characters, though neither so fantastic nor 
 so poetical as those of Cooper, are yet very interesting, and the 
 sad scenes which close the history are painted with a vividness 
 which is calculated to make a deep impression." Another 
 reviewer says of this author, in reference to tliis book, that he 
 "does not possess, ai least he has not yet developed, the perfect 
 art of the novelist. His forte lies in vivid desqriptions of see- 
 
Living writers of the south. nt 
 
 nery, of persons, and fierce combats. He has a noble field stnd 
 a bright future before him, but he must - ' 
 
 'Bridle in his struggling muse,' 
 
 even if it cost him pain." 
 
 13. Mohun; or the Last Days of Lee and his Paladins. 
 This is another war-novel ; and is, Jikg tlie pthers, spirited, racy, 
 personal, and very Virginian. It begins at (Gettysburg, and ends 
 with Appomattox Court-House. -After speaking of Surry of 
 Eagle's Nest, and Fairfax, one has little to say oi Mohun. 
 
 As a poet, Captain Cooke has produced some creditable 
 lyrics and occasional poems. These were the work of his ear- 
 lier years, — before he had achieved his finest successes in novel- 
 writing, — and none of them are equal to that exquisite l3aic by 
 his elder brother, entitled Florence Kane. • The longest poem 
 that I have seen by .Captaiu Cooke is entitled simply; Stanzas, 
 and is a threnody, resembling in theme, measure, rhythm, and 
 tone, the In Memoriam of Tennyson; and this resemblance is its 
 greatest fault, for in itself it is a poem of considerable vigcfur. 
 The following extract may serve to illustrate most of these 
 points : — 
 
 I thought to pass away from earth. 
 And join thee with that other heart 
 Loved even more than thee, — a part 
 
 Of other worlds, through heavenlier birth, — 
 
 Of whom I dd not speak my thought, 
 
 So dear she is, because the eye 
 
 O'arflows ^ith woe, and ^yith a cry 
 I tear the symbols I have wrought. 
 
 No word shall be of that one grief, 
 
 Because it lies too deep for words, 
 
 And this sad trifling which affords 
 Some respite, could be no relief. 
 
112 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH'. 
 
 Of the smaller poems, a fair specimen is Memories, which I 
 quote entire : — 
 
 The flush of sunset dies 
 
 Far on ancestral trees ; 
 
 On the bright-booted bees ; 
 
 On the cattle-dotted leas ! 
 And a mist is in my eyes, — 
 
 For in a stranger land 
 
 Halts the quick-running sand. 
 
 Shaken by no dear hand ! 
 
 How plain is the floweiing grass. 
 
 The sunset-flooded door ; 
 
 I hear the river's roar 
 
 Say clearly, "Nevermore." 
 I see the cloud-showers pass 
 
 Over my mountain meres ; 
 
 Gone are the rose-bright yeai's. 
 
 Drowned in a sea of tears. 
 
 His Other lyrical productions that I have seen, are like this in 
 being creditable in some degree, but not remarkable. 
 
 His chirograph, judging from the limited specimen I hay^ 
 seen, indicates refinement, aspiration, directness, perseverance, 
 and a pervading and intense consciousness of self. 
 
 MISS EMILY GRAIN. 
 
 The author oi Emily Chester — a novel published some years 
 ago — is a resident of the city of Baltimore. I am not aware 
 that she has written any other volume, her other productions 
 being fugitive, for periodicals. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTM. 113 
 
 J. 'MARSHALL CRAWFORD. 
 
 The only item about this writer that appears in his one Vol- 
 ume, is that he was of Company B, — we are left to suppose 
 somewhere in Mosb/s command. His book is Moshy and his 
 men: a record- of the Adventures of that renowned Partisan 
 Ranger, John S. Mosby [Colonel C. S. A.]^ including the 
 exploits of Smith, Chapman^ Richards, Montjoy, Turner, Rus- 
 sell, Glasscock, and the men under them. It is a duodecimo, 
 and appeared in New York, 1867. 
 
 MRS. JULIA PLEASANTS CRESWELL. 
 
 Huntsville, Alabama, — a jewel upon the bosom of the Cum- 
 berland Mountain, — has been the locale of quite a number of 
 celebrities. It claims " the classic face and modulated eloquence 
 of Jere. Clemens; tlie Roman patriotism of C. C. Clay, Jj.; the 
 sparkling wit of T. B. ^. Bradley ; and the graceful manners of 
 Miss Cruse." 
 
 Mrs. Creswell is a native of Huntsville, and shares the mental 
 qualities that seem to spring from su<^ inspiring scenery. Her 
 nationality is Welsh. Her father. Col. James Jay Pleasants, was 
 a native of Hanover County, Virginia. The family was origi- 
 nally of the Quaker faith ; and its members have always been 
 noted for their amiability, integrity, and tajents mainly in a literary 
 direction. Her mother, a daughter of Governor Thomas Bibb, of 
 Alabama, was a woman of rare beauty and genius. In 1854 
 Miss Pleasants was married: to Mr. Creswell, a native of South 
 Carolina, a lawyer of distinction, and before the war one of the 
 District Judges of the State of Alabama. 
 
 The cares of a large fainijy have of late years materially lim- 
 ited the literary labours of Mrs. Creswell ; yet she has frequently 
 appeared as a contributor to the first-class periodicals in the South. 
 
114 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 
 
 As most others did, she suffered financially to an almost fatal de- 
 gree by the late war. 
 Her works are : — 
 
 1. Apheila, and other Poems. By two cousins of the South. 
 The two cousins were Mjss Julia Pleasants — now Mrs. Cres- 
 well — and Thomas Bibb M. Bradley, Esquire, of Huntsville. 
 The volume appeared in 1854. 
 
 2. Poems. This collection of Mrs. Creswell's verses has not 
 yet been published in book form ; but is ready for publication in 
 that form, and will doubtless soon appear. 
 
 3. Callamura. This is an allegorical novel, which appeared 
 in 1868, from a Philadelphia publishing-house. It was well 
 received, and deserved it. 
 
 As illustrative of a certain tenderness that is in an eminent 
 degree characteristic of our author's muse, I should be pleased 
 to quote Addie, — a lyric-narrative poem that has been much 
 and justly admired, but it is too long for the space before us. 
 Instead, I give two short ones, — Fading, and Of Thee. The 
 former is as 'follows: — ; 
 
 Fast fades the crimson rose of May, 
 Its withered leaves borne to decay, 
 The sport of every zephyr gay, 
 Fading, 
 
 Fallaig, 
 
 Flying ! 
 And fast the rainbow flutters by. 
 No more to paint the bended sky; 
 To dun and dreary vacancy 
 Hasting, 
 
 Hurrying, 
 
 'Hieing 1 
 
 The barque that stems the ocean-wave 
 At last sails down her ocean-grave ; 
 And speeds no more with banners brave. 
 Plashing, 
 
 Plunging, ,.; 
 Plying ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF 'THE SOVTff. , ri^ 
 
 1 The rarest song the minstrel angs. 
 Though music plume his starry wings. 
 Must perish on the bursting stlrings, 
 Sobbing, 
 
 Sorrowing, 
 
 Sighing ! 
 
 Down rushes from its lofty height. 
 The star that crowned the brow of night ; 
 Far-flashing from the stirainiiig sight. 
 Fading, ■' '' 
 
 Falling, 
 
 Flying! 
 And man, that crowns the wheeling earth 
 With Beauty, Musjc, Love, and Mirth, 
 Soon passes from his place of birth, 
 Sre'aining, ' 
 
 Doubting, 
 — oiIlyiBg! 
 
 Of Thee, is of the song order : — _ ' 
 
 A soft tie binds my soul to thine. 
 
 Though many miles between. 
 With winding streams and hiUs of pine 
 
 And forests intervene. 
 A sympathetic thought, that comes 
 
 When I am glad and free, 
 And like the breeze, half-uttered, hums 
 
 A song of thee, of thee ! 
 
 As a harp of heaven echoes back 
 
 Another sounding harp, 
 Or clouds, ijielt in one rosy track, 
 
 When gales are cool and sharp. 
 So all the music of my heart 
 
 Hath sought its devotee,- — 
 Hath floated to its counterpart. 
 
 To dream of thee, of thee 1 
 
Ij6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 What though the world, the heartless world, 
 
 May Goldly jeer and scorn ; 
 Love's rosy wings wiU wave, unfurled 
 
 In life's delightful mom ; 
 And as a perfumed island bleeps 
 
 Upon a silver sea, 
 My soul rests on its starry deeps. 
 
 And dreams of thee, of thee ! 
 
 Mrs. CresweH now lives in northwestern Louisiana, at Green- 
 wood, in Caddo Parish. 
 
 Her chirograph is in a high degree womanly, — indicating a 
 disposition to confide ; a singularly clear mind, heart, and man- 
 ner, — clear in the sense of direct, sincere, and earnest; a full 
 share of tenderness, and of vital sympathies with those near and 
 known, — with hope large enough for better times than these. 
 
 MRS. JANE T. H. CROSS. 
 
 Mrs. Cross, — wl^ Chinn, — is a native of Kentucky. The 
 plaec of her birth is Harrodsburg ; and the date, 1 8 1 7. She was 
 educated at Shelbyville, in her native state. As a girl, she was 
 passionately fond of society and its gayeties, and' of reading the 
 literature that constitutes the counterpart of such an age and 
 such tastes. This tuition was useful to her in after life. 
 
 At eighteen she became the wife of James P. Hardin, Esquire, 
 a lawyer of Bardstown, Kentucky, whose rising career of distinc- 
 tion was cut short by death, — death after a winter spent in 
 Cuba to restore a wasting physique. Thus, at the age of twenty- 
 five, Mrs. Hardin was left a widow with three daughters. 
 
 A few years afterwards — in 1848 — she was married to the Rev. 
 Dr. Cross, — at that time. Professor of Belles-Lettres in Transyl- 
 vania University, Lexington, Kentucky, and a distinguished min- 
 ister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South ; but who is now 
 
LlVmO WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. H? 
 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Since that time she has 
 lived at various places, and has engaged in a variety of pursuits. 
 Among her places of residence are — Nashville, Tennessee; 
 Huntsville,. Alabama ; Charleston and Spartanburg, South Caro- 
 lina ; Eatonton, Georgia ; Antonio and Houston, Texas. 
 
 The last named is her present home, where Dr. Cross is in 
 charge of a church. 
 
 During the war, — in 1861, or possibly 1862, — Mrs. Cross and 
 her two daughters enjoyed the distinction of being arrested and- 
 tried by a military tribunal, for waving their handkerchiefs to 
 Morgan's troops passing through Hairodsburg. 
 
 They spent a few days in jail, under sentence of the court ; 
 were thea sent to Louisville, and ordered to Camp Ghase, 
 which order, however, was not carried into execution. The 
 prisoners were subsequently sent South, and finally escaped 
 into the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 Mrs. Cross has contributed to .a great many periodicals, in 
 quite a variety of styles. While making the tour of Europe with 
 her husband, she wrote letters of cotrrespondeace for the Chris- 
 tian Ad'bocate, a Methodist organ, and for the Charleston Courier. 
 Sie is tOjday contributing to the JI»me Monthly, a Methodist 
 magazine of Naghyille,i 
 
 Her works are : — 
 
 1. Heart-Bkssonts for my little Daughters. This is as mall 
 booJc, as its title imports, written for young persons. Such is to 
 some extent also the character of the following trio : — 
 
 2. Wayside Flowerets. 
 
 3. Bible Gleanings. 
 
 4. Drift-Wooi. 
 
 t^.^Gotnzalvo ^e Cordova; or, the Conquest of, Granada. A 
 translation from the Spanish of Florian. This story appeared in 
 serial issues in the Home Monthly, during 1867. 
 
 6. Duncan Aff(iir, or Captured in Escaping. A, story \vritten 
 during the war. . 
 
 1. Azile : a Story. Nashville, Tennessee, 1868. Of this novel, 
 
ii8 LIVING WRITERS -OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 a western editor, — Prof. A. B. Stark, of the Home Monthly,-^ 
 says : " Mrs. Cross's book is pure, elevated, ennobling. It 
 contains the mature thoughts of a pure, cultivated, Christian 
 woman. The story is quiet, straightforward, and grows in inte- 
 rest to the close. The scene in the first part is laid' in Dresden. 
 This gives the authoress an opportunity to use her rich stores of 
 information, gathered in her travels in Europe. There is some 
 fine-art criticism. There is a vast deal of information about the 
 customs and habits of the German people, their amusementsj and 
 their recreations. We are introduced' into the private circle of 
 a German family, and see how they live. Afterward, the scene 
 is transferred to the Southern States, at the beginning of the war, 
 and ends with the first battle of Manassas. This affords occa- 
 sion for showing the feelings and thoughts of a true Southern 
 woman on the Union, Secession, and War. In this picture she 
 is wonderfully true in her conception of that time of revulsion, 
 upheaval, and enthusiasm. It is a book of interest and value. 
 It deserves a generous reception by Southern readers. The 
 style is smooth, clear, and lively. Mrs. Cross knows Jean Paul, 
 and is, of course, an enthusiastic admirer of him." 
 
 Mrs. Cross is distinguished for her earnestness and energy. 
 Her chirograph indicates these qualities, besides directness, rest- 
 less and sympathetic activity. 
 
 As a specimen, of Mrs. Cross's meditative muse, I present 
 Jncommunicable Thought, giving the poem entire, which is a 
 poem of rare suggestiveness and truth : — 
 
 I stood upon the sounding ocean shore. 
 
 The waves were rippling as an infant's slumbers, . 
 
 And as they onward flowed for evermore,' 
 
 My thoughts floWed onward, too, in rhythmic numbers. 
 
 Joyous I stood,. as in a trance or vision. 
 
 My soul quite rapt into the realms, elysian. 
 
 The wind was sirigiiig through the lofty palm — 
 The wind, the sea, my soul, all sang together ; 
 
 It was a dreamy, purling, pleasant psalm. 
 
 Such song as fills the world in summer weather ; 
 
LIVING IVRITMBS OF. THE SOUTff. "9 
 
 White blossoms ijur^t upouithe wavelets flowing, 
 And.in my heart the blossoms, too, were glowing. 
 
 The stars were shining with a tender light, 
 
 And.floods of radiance from the moon were streaming; 
 More beautifjUl than day was this sweet night, 
 . ^And more tjian years of life, this horn: of dreaming; 
 'As heaved beneath the moon the mighty ocean. 
 So was my heart beneath its bliss iri rjiotip"- 
 
 And while I stood upon the snowy sand, 
 
 My natiire all with soft emotion reelmg, 
 A magic reed was placed within my hand,-^ 
 
 " Inscribe upon the wave thy thought and feeling." 
 Theri I commenced with eager hand the writing. 
 As if to bless thle world with the inditing. 
 
 I wrote the bliss that all my heart b'erspread; 
 
 I wrote the thought that all my brain was crowding ; 
 Yet, as I wrote, spell-boitad, by Fancy led,. 
 
 The misty sptay arose', the sense o'erclouding ; 
 The thodght was dim, the words confused and broken ; 
 " The Tiame that's writ on water, leavesjip token." 
 
 The incommunicabte rapture dies. 
 And yet the dream of bliss is worth the dreaming; 
 
 Oh, let me look into the starry skies, ' 
 
 If but to catch their faint and far-off gleaming ! 
 
 Oh, let me gslze through Beauty's m/oming portal. 
 
 Though. I may ne'er describe it nntt> niortal ! 
 
 Home, Forever and Ever, is in a different vein, and will serve 
 as specimenal of our author's religious verse. It speaks for itself, 
 but far less warmly than the preceding : — 
 
 " The child exclaimed in wild glee, ' Going home, for good and all ! Going 
 home, forever and ever.' " — Christmas Carol. 
 
 Art weary of thy heavy woes, : 
 Of failing friends and sneering foes. 
 
 Of Jic^es that, blossom nev«!r? ,. . 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Then listen, while the tear-drops fall ; 
 " Thou'rt going home for good and all. 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 There, in that home with beauty rife, 
 Are friends whom thou hast known in life. 
 
 Whom death, not change, did sever ; 
 Dear faces, hidden by the pall, 
 Shall there be found, "for good and all, 
 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 The road is long, thy heart is faint. 
 Thou strugglest still to be a saint. 
 
 With constant, vain endeavour ; 
 But, thougll thou oft and sorely fall. 
 Just think of ' ' home for good and all. 
 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 Tiled of the world, its gaud, its pelf. 
 Tired of thine own imperfect self. 
 
 Of friends both dull and clever; 
 Yet think, while these upon thee pall, 
 " Thou'rt going home, for good and all. 
 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 There love shall dwell without a cloud. 
 The robe of light replace the shroud, 
 
 Thy heart grow weaiy never ; 
 There, in thy Father's peaceful hall, 
 Thou'lt rest at home, "for good and all. 
 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 R. H. CROZIER. 
 
 In 1866 there appeared a volume entitled The Confederatt 
 Spy: a Story of the War of 186 1. By R. H. Crozier, A.M., 
 formerly Captain of Co. I, 33d Regiment Mississippi Volunteers. 
 The preface was dated Panola County, Mississippi. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. MARY ANN CRUSE. 
 
 During the year 1867 there appeared from the press of a Phila- 
 delphia house, Cameron Hall ; a Story of the Civil War, — which 
 is one of the many stories that grew immediately out of the war. 
 Besides this, the author has written only some juvenile books, 
 designed to interest the young, and instruct them in the teachings 
 of the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Cruse is, I believe, a Virginian by 
 birth, a teacher by profession, and is now a resident of Hunts- 
 ville, Alabama. She is of a retiring disposition ; and Shows in her 
 chirograph a sensitive, meditative, and earnest temperament. 
 
 MRS. LIZZIE PETIT CUTLER. 
 
 Miss Petit was born in a little hamlet called Milton, in Albe- 
 marle County, Virginia. As a child she was precocious and 
 impressible. The sombre associations of her childhood — a wild, 
 gloomy, and romantic old-time mansion, with the reputation of 
 being haunted, a graveyard, and a few similar objects — -added to 
 her early Orphanage, seem to have given a tinge to her infant 
 mind. Speaking of these, she herself says : " Over my early life 
 was cast the shadow of these influences, and the brooding wings 
 of memory too soon folded themselves around a heart whose 
 dearest pulse-beats were the requiems of the loved and lost." 
 But tlie glorious scenery of Albemarle should have counter- 
 balanced such sombre influences. 
 
 Miss Petit was educated mainly at a seminary for young ladies 
 in Charlottesville, Virginia ; but her education was very soon — at 
 the age of fourteen — interrupted by her being allowed to enter 
 society. Her literary education was continued, but very irregu- 
 larly after that time. 
 
 A few years after this entrance into gay society, — that is to say, 
 
122 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 in 1855, when she was about nineteen, — our young author ven- 
 tured upon publishing a book. 
 
 Most of Mrs. Cutler's reputation was achieved under her 
 maiden name — Lizzie Petit — and it is by that name that she is 
 best known to Southern readers. Her marriage took place after 
 the publication of her third volume — The Stars of the Crowd. 
 
 Her works are these : — 
 
 1. Light and Darkness. This is a novel of le beau monde, 
 as Miss Petit had found it. Of this book a true-hearted woman 
 has said : "As we read, the wonder grows that a girl of nineteen 
 could be so thoroughlythe woman of the world — so perfectly au 
 fait of the artificialities and hollowness, the by-play and intrigue 
 of the beau monde. We can not help feeling sorrowful for the 
 veil so early torn away — for the beautiful dreams prematurely 
 dispelled — for the fair young face and the old young heart. 
 The same regret is clearly an underlying current of the book. 
 Our author misses the sweet time of waiting and watching, which, 
 by a delicate provision, reveals life step by step to the neophyte. " 
 The book had a fine American success, and was republished 
 successfully in London, and translated into French. There is, 
 indeed, something that savours of French feeling in the book 
 originally. 
 
 2. Household Mysteries, a Romance of Southern Life,— an- 
 other society novel, full of the same spirit, but more hastily 
 written, and therefore far inferior. 
 
 3. The Stars of the Crowd, or Men and Women of the Day. 
 
 4. A new novel was announced in October, 1868, but I am 
 not aware that it has yet appeared. 
 
 In i860, our author gave a series of readings in public, com- 
 mencing in New- York City, Her success as a reader of Shakes- 
 peare was decided; Bulwer's poems and Mrs. Caudle's Lec- 
 tures were rendered in such a manner as to eUcit the highest 
 encomiums from tlie press on all hands. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. 123 
 
 ROBERT L. DABNEY, D.D. 
 
 A brother-clergyman has said of Dr. Dabnky : " He is more 
 a pulpit thinker than a pulpit orator. His eloquence, if he may 
 be termed eloquent, is the eloquence of thought, and not of 
 passion or feeling. He does not make you feel, only as original, 
 profound, and stirring thought makes you feel, by thriUing the 
 intellect witla revelations of hew truths, or of old truths in new- 
 connections and revelations. His manner in the pulpit is natural 
 and agreeable, his language is pure and simple, his style chaste 
 and beautiful, his diction elegant, and his thought rich, original, 
 and profound. He is a philosophicial preacher. A rich vein of 
 spiritual philosophy ran like a golden thread of light through the 
 whole sermon which we had the pleasure of hearing. In this 
 particular, he resembles Vinet more than he does Chalmers. 
 His sermons are more philosophical, but not so impassioned and 
 poetical as tho^ of the great Scotch divine. Chalmers' style 
 has more beauty, Dabne/s more strengtii. We have heard men 
 of more earnestness, more passion, more of that burning, fiery 
 eloquence that makes thfs eye kindle, the face flush, the breath 
 stop, and the heart almost cease to beat under the emotion pro- 
 duced by the magic power of the orator, but we have never heard 
 a more profound, original, able, and instructive preacher." 
 
 Dr. Dabney is a Virginian, I understand ; and has been a teacher; 
 a preacher, professor, soldier, and historian. He is still a com- 
 paratively young man, and in personal appearance is said to 
 be decidedly good-looking. He is Professor, I see it stated, in 
 the Virginia, Theological Seminary. 
 
 His works are : — 
 
 I. TAe Life and Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas 
 J. Jackson. This octavo of 750 pages appeared in 1866, and 
 is said to be "a remarkable production — remarkable for its 
 accuracy of statement, and its precision of minute historical 
 details." 
 
124 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 2. A Defence of Virginia (and through her of the South), 
 in Recent and Fending Contests against the Sectional Party. 
 This is a duodecimo of fair size, and appeared in 1867. A 
 Northern critic has said of this work: "The Old Testament 
 Argument, the New Testament Argument, the Ethical Argument, 
 and the Economical Argument, are fully and fairly discussed, 
 with the candour and moderation of one who writes in defence of 
 a principle, not a party. In short, the book is a perfect com- 
 pendium of all that can be said on the subject of slavery, pro or 
 con, and should be in the possession of every one who desires 
 to understand both sides of the question. It must not be sup- 
 posed that the author merely masses together the opinions and 
 reasonings of others, — that would be to do him great injustice. 
 His own views and opinions are stated with precision, his 
 arguments presented and enforced clearly and forcibly, and the 
 volume, from the first to the last sentence, written with the earn- 
 estness of thorough conviction.'' 
 
 The expression of such views indicates that the argument in 
 the Defence is handled with much temperance as well as ability. 
 This is regarded as our author's magnum opus. A Southern 
 journal — the Charleston Mercury — ^ys of it : — 
 
 " It takes up slavery, as existing under the autliority of the 
 Old Testament, tlien under the New, — its origin in tiiis country, 
 and its true nature ; and thread by thread it disentangles the 
 woof of abolition sophistries, and vindicates the lawfulness and 
 sinlessness of slavery. It is the most comprehensive and un- 
 answerable review of the whole subject we have ever seen ; and 
 every Southern man, at least, ought to own a copy of it, if for no 
 other purpose, to give to his children the opportunity of cor- 
 rectly appreciating his course in maintaining it. The white race 
 of the South is down now, under the heels of Radical hate and 
 negro fanaticism ; but the truth of God's Word and of nature, 
 can not be smothered forever. It will rise up in spite of man's 
 wickedness, ignorance, and folly ; and in due time will place the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 125 
 
 people of the Southern States completely vindicated before tlie 
 whole world for maintaining African slavery, and resisting the 
 madness which has overthrown it." 
 
 JOHN L., DAGG> D.D. 
 
 Dr. Dagg is, I have the impression, a native of Pennsylvania, 
 but a long life South has identified him with the section. He is 
 now an old man, ripe ia learning, anpl stapcj^ among tlie first in 
 the Baptist denomination. He is to-day President of Mercer 
 University, a sectarian institution in Georgia. , He has, written a 
 number of works, of which the following are the chief: — • 
 
 1. A Manual of Theology; and a second volume on Church 
 Order^ 
 
 2. Moral Science. 
 
 3. AnEngfUh, Grammar. 
 
 WILLIAM C. DANA. 
 
 The Rev, Mr. Dana, who has been pastor of the Third Pres- 
 byterian Church— now the Central Church — in Charleston, .since' 
 i33S, is a native of Massachusetts; and was born at JNew- 
 buryport, in 18 10. He graduated at Dactmouth College, New 
 Hampshire ; but .fi^iished his theological st;udiep at Cplunjbia, 
 South Carolina. 
 
 In 1831, he, with, a friend, conducted the publication of the 
 Sabbath-School Library, which was intended %o be a periodical, 
 but was discontinued upon his removal to the South., In 1839 
 and 1840,' he was the principal editor and cqntributor to the 
 Southern Chri^ian Sentinel, a religious newspaper published 
 in Charleston. 
 
126 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 He has publislied the following works : — 
 
 1. A translation of FenUon on the Education of Daughters, 
 which appeared in 1831, whilethe translator was still in Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 2. A Transatlantic Tour. Published in 1845, giving an ac- 
 count of his travels in Europe during the year 1844. 
 
 3. Hymns. A Collection of H3dinns for Public Worship. 
 
 4. Life of Rev. Dr. Samuel Dana. A biography of the author's 
 father. 
 
 MRS. C. O. DANNELLY. 
 
 Under the nam de plume of " Cachus," Mrs. Dannelly has 
 written a good deal of verse within the last eight or teti years. 
 She is a native of Madison, Georgia ; and graduated at Madison 
 Female College, in 1856. So marked was the character of her 
 graduating essay — a satirical poem, entitled, Has She Any Tin? 
 — that it was soon afterwards published in pamphlet. Her 
 main publications are these : — 
 
 r. Jlas She Any Tin? A satire on money, love, and society 
 in general. 
 
 2. Destruction of the City of Columbia, South Carolina. A 
 poem, by a Lady of Georgia. True statement of facts. Charles- 
 ton, 1866. This, like the precetHng, is in the brochure style. 
 
 Mrs. Dannelly — :«eif Marshall — has lived mainly in her native 
 state. During the war, a portion of the time she lived, while her 
 husband was on duty there as Chief Surgeon of that state, in 
 Columbia, and was there at the surrender and sack of the city in 
 1865. She is to-day resident in Baltimore. 
 
 Of Mrs. Dannelly's recent poems. The Confederate Dead\% a 
 fair specimen. Her vein is satirical' in general, though in this 
 there is nothing of the kind : — 
 
 A simple board of rough, ill-shapen pine, 
 O'errun perchance hy some tenacjoifs^vihe, 
 Placed by some friendly hand above each head, 
 Is all that marks our brave Confederate dead. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 127 
 
 No epitaph, save now and then "Unknown" 
 Carved rudely on some unpretending stone ; 
 No tovi'ermg shaft, with flattering words inlaid. 
 Casts o'er our slain its proud imperial shade. 
 
 But can the skillful hand of polished Art 
 
 To worth unsullied one more charm impart, 
 
 Bequeath to hallowed dust a sweeter rest. 
 
 Or make their names more honoured or more blest ? 
 
 .Though monumental stone should never rise 
 To tell the world where fallen valour lies, 
 Each heart erects its own immortal shrine. 
 And there inscribes him attributes divine. ' 
 
 We need no piles of sculptured marble gray 
 To tell us where the Southern soldier lay. 
 For roses cluster o'er his gi'assy bed. 
 And round the spot their sweetest fragrance shed. 
 
 Embedded there by woman's virtuous hand. 
 Sweet emblems of our own bright sunny land. 
 Could flowers fair for better purpose bloom 
 Than to adorn the Southern soldier's tomb ? 
 
 Brave heroes of a "lost," but sacred cause. 
 Though now virithheld their well-deserved applause. 
 Impartial History must in time grow bold, — 
 Their virtues and their deeds will yet be told. 
 
 Poets vpill linger on the blood-dyed plains. 
 And chant above our lost their sweetest strains ; 
 Confederate dead will yet survive in song, 
 Nor shall their glorious deeds be hidden long ; 
 
 Fair daughters of our balmy clime will bring 
 Their floral oflerings with each coming Spring, 
 Entwine a wreath around each humble grave — 
 A loving tribute to our sleeping brave. 
 
128 LTVIMG WRITSRS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Though in the struggle triumph crowned the "strong," 
 'Tis not to strength that honour should belong ; 
 He most deserves it who most nobly gave 
 His life, his "all," his country's rights to save, — 
 
 Who fought not through a selfish love of gain. 
 Spurned rank or "bounty," and shrank not from pain; 
 'Twas but to save wife, children, home, and pride. 
 The Southern soldier battled, bled, and died. 
 
 Their cause was noble, and their deeds sublime. 
 Their just reward is held in trust by Time ; 
 She must, and will, at last bestow the prize, 
 For worth immortal never, never dies. 
 
 MISS CLARA VICTORIA DARGAN. 
 
 Whetlier Miss Dargan is the poet of largest promise among 
 her sex in the South, as we have heard claimed for her, I do 
 not propose to discuss. That she stands high among our peri- 
 odical writers as a romancist, and very high as a poet of promise, 
 I feel no hesitation in claiming for her. What the future will 
 determine, depends more upon Miss Dargan herself than upon 
 her gifts. She has the gifts, and may make them available. 
 A good deal that she has written has appeared anonymously, 
 or, which is the same thing in effect, under some undistinguish- 
 able nom de plume. 
 
 I believe but two of her fictions have appeared in book fonn ; 
 and these did so in brochure during Confederate times, when the 
 voice of war was silencing almost all gentler voices ; so it came 
 that the public— even our Confederate public — heard no great 
 deal about them. She has contributed freely to a few Southern 
 journals since the war, however, and thus has become in certain 
 circles better appreciated. 
 
 The stories just referred to are : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 129 
 
 1. Riverlands. A story of life upon the Ashley, in South 
 Carolina ; which took a prize offered for the best story by the 
 Southern Field and Fireside, about the beginning of the war. 
 After it had appeared serially in the weekly, it was published in 
 Confederate book form, about 1863. 
 
 2. Helen Howard. Also a prize-story, published during the 
 year 1861. It appeared under the nom de flume of Esther 
 Chesney, a name used by the author in many of her earlier 
 productions. 
 
 It is mainly of Miss Dargan's poetry that I propose here to 
 speak, because I conceive that her chief merit lies in that 
 direction. 
 
 This brace of poems, forming one, as they do, is in her best 
 style. The title of the whole is. Then and Now; and the names 
 of the separate parts are the dates: — 
 
 1864. 
 
 I woke within the darkened dawn — 
 
 I woke, and saw the mournful stars 
 Go slowly trooping o'er the plain, 
 
 Bearing the grand old warrior Mars 
 Upon his crimson sWeld, 
 And said, "It is a sign to me 
 That he is dead — his soul is free. 
 As wane those stars within the west, 
 So he has found a dreamless rest 
 Upon the battle-field. 
 
 , ".God pity me! He was my friend, 
 And this his welcome natal momj 
 Yet there he lies so cold and still. 
 And I lie here — alone, forlorn. 
 
 And watch the day grow red,— 
 The dreary day ! O! piteous stars, 
 Bear to his rest your hero Mars, 
 But look across the azure plain, — 
 Look back, and tell me once again, - 
 Is my brave hero dead ? " 
 
I30 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 1866. 
 
 I thought you dead : it was a dream ! 
 
 Fate had a bitterer lot in store : 
 You to live on, estranged and cold, 
 
 I to exist, yet live no more. 
 
 Another natal morn has dawned ; 
 
 I watched the stars at break of day. 
 As far behind the western steeps 
 
 They faded into misty gray, 
 
 And spoke not. Only in my heart 
 There rose a faintly murmured prayer : 
 
 " God bless my friend ! though friend no more," 
 And silent passed into a tear. 
 
 Is that not genuine poetry? It has the clear Greek directness 
 which Mrs. Browning knew so well how to use upon occasion. 
 Jean Ingelow has been praised of late years for poorer things 
 than this; and Tennyson has published many inferior, even 
 since he has worn tlie laurel. 
 
 I offer another poem which has been greatly admired, though 
 I myself consider it inferior to a dozen others I could quote. 
 My friend, the late Mr. Timrod, once said of this poem — Jean 
 to Jamie — and his was a gentle heart to feel these things: 
 " If simplicity and pathos be poetry, then this is poetry of the 
 highest stamp. The verses flow with the softness of a womaris 
 tears." 
 
 There is poetry in this appreciative sentence. I give Miss 
 Dargan's poem en&e: — 
 
 What do you think now, Jamie, 
 What do you think now ? 
 'Tis many a long year since we parted. 
 Do you still believe Jean honest-hearted, — 
 Do you think so now ? 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 131 
 
 You did think so once, Jamie, 
 In the blithe spring-time ;■ 
 " There's never a star in the blue sky 
 That's half sae true as my Jamie," quo' I, — 
 Do you mind the time ? 
 
 III. 
 We were happy then, Jamie, 
 Too happy, I fear ; 
 Sae we kissed farewell at the cottage door, — 
 I never have seen you since at that door. 
 This many a year. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For they told you lies, Jamie, 
 
 You believed them a' ! 
 
 You, who had promised to trust me true 
 
 Before the whole world, — what did you do? 
 
 You believed them a' 1 
 
 V. 
 When they called you fause, Jamie, 
 And argued It sair, 
 I flashed wi' anger — I kindled wi' scorn, 
 Less at you than at them — I was sae lorn, 
 I could na do m£ur. 
 
 VI. 
 After a bit while; Jamie, 
 After a while, 
 I heard a' the cruel words you had said, — 
 The cruel, hard words, — sae I bowed my head, 
 Na' tear, na' snule, 
 
 VII. 
 
 And took your letters, Jamie, 
 
 Gathered them a'. 
 And burned them one by one in the fire. 
 And watched the bright blaze leaping higher — 
 
 Burned ringlet and a' I 
 
133 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Then back to the world, Jamie, 
 Laughing went I ; 
 There ne'er was a merrier laugh than mine, 
 What foot could out-dance me, what eye outshine ? 
 " Pmr fool ! " laughed I. 
 ) 
 
 IX. 
 
 But I'm weary o' mirth, Jamie, 
 
 'Tis hoUowness a' ; 
 And in these long yeai-s sin' we were parted, 
 I fear I'm growing aye colder-hearted 
 
 Than you thought ava ! 
 
 X. 
 I have many lovers, Jamie, 
 But I dinna care ; 
 I canna' abide a' the nonsense they speak, — 
 Yet I'd gb on my knees o'er Arran's gray peak. 
 To see ye ance mair ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 I long for you back, Jamie, 
 
 But that canna be ; 
 
 I sit all my lane by the ingle at e'en. 
 
 And think a\ those sad words, " It might hae been," 
 
 Yet never can be I 
 
 xn. 
 D'ye think o' the past, Jamie, 
 D'ye think o' it now? 
 'Twad be a bit comfort to know that ye did — 
 Oh, sair would I greet to know that ye did. 
 My dear, dear Jamie ! 
 
 Miss Dargan is a native of Fairfield District, South Carolina. 
 Her education was very carefully conducted; arid her talents, 
 especially in music, very early showed themselves. She was 
 almost a prodigy in music, — being able to play upon the piano 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 133 
 
 some quite intricate pieces at an age so tender that she found 
 some difficulty in reaching the instmment. She wrote verses 
 full of strange fancies before she entered her teens. Since the 
 war she was engaged in teaching music for one year, in Florence, 
 Alabama. She is to-day resident in interior Georgia. 
 
 SAMUEL D. DAVIES. 
 
 In Dr. SiMMs's book of war-poetry is a poem entitled An 
 Evening Visit to the Lines around Petersburg, September, 1865, 
 that reflects credit upon its author, Mr. Davies, a young lawyer 
 of Petersburg, Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Davies was born near Petersburg, on tlie 21st of March, 
 1839, finished his elementary education at William and Mary Col- 
 lege, in Virginia, and is at present practicing law. He was always 
 passionately fond of studying the languages, and has pursued 
 with success hip studies in Greek, Latin, French, and German, 
 and has devoted some attention to Italian. When the war 
 opened, he threw down his Blackstone to take up the sword. 
 He entered Confederate service as a Lieutenant of Infantry, 
 and did service in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia ; was twice 
 wounded ; served oA the staifs of Generals Pettigrew and Archer ; 
 and fought gallantly throughout tlie war. He is still unmarried 
 
 He wrote numerous articles, and some poems, for the Southern 
 Literary Messenger, of Richmond, among which we may mention 
 Fine Arts at the South, Satirical Romance, Novels and Novel- 
 writing, and a Revieuo of Tanhauser ; several for the Crescent 
 Monthly, oi New Orleans, — one on Subjective and Objective 
 Poets ; and one on Literary Ambition. He has also written 
 for other periodicals. With his culture, tastes, and energy, he 
 gives promise of valuable contributions to our Sxjuthern litera- 
 ture. 
 
 His chirogi-aph indicates a rapid mind, a hopeful temperament, 
 
134 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 and ample capacity for labour, with composure and the genuine 
 literary fire. 
 
 I give the Evening Visit, of which I made mention above, as 
 fairly illustrative of Mr. Davies' style : — 
 
 O Silence ! Silence ! now, when night is near, 
 
 And I am left alone. 
 Thou art so strange, so sad, reposing here. 
 
 And all so changed hath grown. 
 Where once I knew so much of busy life, 
 Through day and night in toil or deadly strife. 
 If I must weep, oh, tell me, is there not 
 
 Some plaintive story breathed into ray ear. 
 
 By spirit -whispers from thy voiceless sphere, 
 Haunting this sacred spot ? 
 Unto my soul more sweetly eloquent 
 Than words of love on sculptured monument. 
 Out speaks yon crumbling parapet where lies 
 
 The broken gun, the idly rusting ball, — 
 Mementoes of an ill-starred enterprise ! 
 Rude altar reared for costly sacrifice ! 
 Vast work of hero-hands, left to thy fall. 
 Where are they now, that peerless brotherhood, — 
 
 Who, marshalled here 
 
 That dreadful year. 
 In pain and peril still undaunted stood. 
 When death rode fiercest on the battle-storm. 
 And earth was strewn with many a glorious form ! 
 And where are they, who when the strife was done. 
 
 With kindly greeting round the camp-fire met. 
 And made an hour of mirth from danger won 
 Repay the day's stem toil when the slow sun was set ? 
 Where are they? Let the nameless graves declare. 
 
 In strange, unwonted spots, now frequent seen : 
 Alas ! who knows how much lies buried there : 
 
 What worlds of love, and all that might have been ! 
 
 The rest are scattered now — I know not where — 
 
 And life to each a new employment brings ; 
 But still they seem to gather round me here. 
 
 To whom these places were familiar things: 
 
LTVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 135 
 
 Though sundered wide by mountain and by stream, 
 Once brothers — still a brotherhood they seem; 
 Mbre close imited since a common woe 
 Hath brought to common hopes their overthrowi 
 Brave hearts and true, in toil and danger tried, 
 
 I see them still, as in those glorious years. 
 When strong and hopeful, battling side by side, 
 
 All crowned their deeds with praise — and some with tears. 
 
 'Tis done ! the sword is sheathed, the banner furled; 
 No sound where late the crashing missile whirled. 
 The dead alone are on the battle-plain. 
 The living turn theni, to life's cares, again. 
 
 O Silence ! blessed dreams upon thee wait ; 
 
 Here thought and feeling ope their precious store. 
 And memory, gathering from the spoils of fate 
 
 Love's scattered treasures, brings them back once more. 
 
 So would I often dream. 
 
 As up the brightening' stream 
 
 Of olden time thought leads me gently on. 
 
 Seeking those better days — not lost, alasl but gone 1 
 
 GEORGE L. L. DAVIS. 
 
 The Librariaa of the Maryland State Library has written a 
 volume on the History of Maryland. 
 
 CHARLES F. DEEMS, D.D. 
 
 Dr. Deems, to-day pastor of the Church of the Strangers, in 
 New-York City, is a native of North Carolina. He is univer- 
 sally appreciated, as one full of charity, geniality, and learning. 
 He has published : — 
 
 I. Sermons to Young Men. These, I believe, were Univer- 
 
136 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 sity sermons, delivered originally before the students of the State 
 Institution at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 
 
 2. The Home Altar. An Appeal in behalf of Family Worship, 
 with Prayers and Hymns, and Calendar of Lessons from Scrip- 
 ture, for family use. It contains an arrangement fof Scripture 
 readings, for ten years. This work appeared in 1867. 
 
 Dr. Deems was for a while editor of The Watchman, a religio- 
 literary weekly, of New York. 
 
 CHARLES DELERY, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Delery was bom in Louisiana, January, 1815. His 
 parents were of French origin, having emigrated originally to 
 Canada. After a preparatory course of studies looking to his 
 profession, he was sent, in 1829, to the Medical School of Paris; 
 from which, after the regular coiurse, both in the classics and in 
 medicine, he returned home in 1842, a graduate in medicine. 
 For twenty-five years he has enjoyed the position of an accom- 
 plished physician, a man of science, a gentleman of culture, and 
 a valuable citizen. He now holds the office of city coroner, 
 one to which physicians of high standing only are ever chosen 
 in New Orleans. He has written a great deal for the news- 
 papers, generally upon practical subjects in which lay some 
 benefit to the community, such as hygiene, rather than upon 
 the stormier issues of politics. His published works are : — 
 
 1. Essai sur la Libert^, — written, as are all his works, in the 
 French language. Published in 1847. This brochure is of far 
 more weight than size. Its epigraphs give us the key-note of 
 the author's idea of liberty. They are, firet, La liberty sans 
 Ordre est un libertinage qui attire despotisme, from FfinSlpn's 
 Essai sur Jes Devoirs de la Royaute; and second, Une nation 
 n'est veritablement libre que I'orsqu'un riob&it qiiaux lots, from 
 Beaumarchais's Mlmoires. 
 
 2. Etudes sur les Passions, suiviis d'un Apergu sur I'Educa- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 137 
 
 tion q'uil convient de donner au Peuple. 1849. This small 
 volume the writer calls an optiscule —a. tractate. It discusses 
 the relations of the passions to the duties of life, — especially 
 the social and political duties, — and demalids attention to the 
 true principles of education. 
 
 3. Quelque Mots sur le Nativisme. 1854. This is a political 
 tractate upon the political issues of that day — Native Ameri- 
 canism and Immigfdtion. It was translated into English' — the 
 only one that has been of all his works. 
 
 4. Fievre Jaune. 1859. This is a trfeatise upon the epi- 
 demic of 1848, and'is tli6 auth-or's first essay in the line of his 
 profession. 
 
 S- Coftf&deris et Fideraux — Les Yankees Fondateurs de I'^Es- 
 elavagle mix Etats- Unis et Initiatemrs du Droit de Secession. 1 864. 
 This political argument appeared during the war, and discusses 
 the two prominent issues of the contest. - • ■ 
 
 6. Memoir e sur I'Epidemie de Fievre /atMe qui a rlgnSd la 
 Nouvelle Orleans et dans les Campagnes. 1868. This is the 
 largest publication of our author; And contains, besides the 
 discussions and views of the writer upon the epidemic, a large 
 collection of statistical iiifbrmation upon the disease, and mat- 
 ters incidental to it, or to its treatment, causes, and cure. The 
 work sho^vs much learning and careful research. 
 
 Besides these. Dr. Delery delivered the inaugural address 
 before the Medical Society of New Orleans, in February, 1859, 
 which was published in pamphlet. 
 
 'Dr. Del&y's style is French,-'— direct, clear, easy, and toupe, 
 The tone is always earnest, and therein^ elevated. As a writer, 
 he is esthetical in an eminent degree, devoted to the beautiful 
 and the good, as well as to the ttseful. 
 
 His chirograph indicates these qualities of mind, and is, for a 
 French hand, unusually round and upright. Compactness, neat- 
 ness without punctiliousness, and with absolutely no flourish or 
 display, appear in his chirography. There is no niceness^ but a 
 neatness that is barely less. , ^ 1 
 
138 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MAXIMILIAN SCHELE DeVERE, LL.D. 
 
 Prof. DeVere is a native of Sweden, and was bom near 
 Wexio, on Wednesday, the ist of November, 1820. He was 
 educated, I believe, in Germany ; and very early in life entered 
 tlae military service of Prussia, but was soon transferred to tlie 
 diplomatic service of the same power. He emigrated to the 
 United States, and in 1844 was appointed Professor of Modern 
 Languages and Belles-Lettres in the University of Virginia, a 
 position which he has continued to hold with ability to the 
 present day. He has written : — 
 
 1. Outlines of Comparative Philology, — with a Sketch of the 
 Languages of Europe, and a Brief History of the Art of Writing. 
 This is an admirable work, and is used as a text-book in the 
 University of Virginia. It is. a duodecimo, and was published 
 in New York, in 1853. 
 
 2. Stray Leaves from tfie Book of Nature. This is a pleasant 
 and instructive series of scientific but not technical papers.upon 
 subjects in natural history and philosophy, chiefly in,, the (de- 
 partment known as minute. It is a duodecimo, and appeared 
 in 1856. New York. 
 
 3. Studies in English, or a Glance at the Inner Life of our 
 Language. This is a book ably written, though small, com- 
 pared with the vastness of the subject, — consisting of discussions 
 in tliat field of English Philology into which we have gone jn 
 the works of Purley, Trench, Marsh, SwintOHj and otliers. , Pub- 
 lished in New York. 1867. 
 
 4. {jtavrniOir in French. 1867. 
 
 5. First French Reader. 1867. 
 d. Second French Reader. 1867. 
 
 In addition to the books he has written, Prof. DeVere has 
 contributed some valuable papers to our literature in. the form 
 of articles published in the British quarterly reviews, in: tlie 
 Southern Literary Messenger, Putnam's Magazine, Harper's 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THB SOUTH. 139 
 
 Monthly, and other first-class periodicals. His series of papers 
 in the Southern Literary Messenger, called Glimpses of Europe 
 in 1848, are said to haye been remarkable for, political insight 
 and vivid colouring. 
 
 Prof DeVere's chirograph is in an eminent degree neat and 
 esthetical. As to nationality, it is more English than German. 
 It impresses one as that of a man of careful and nice culture, 
 fastidious taste, persistent energy, and a vast reverence for 
 antecedents and hereditary rights. 
 
 SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON, M.D., 
 
 Dr. Dickson is justly conceded to be the most accomplished 
 litterateur in the learned profession of medicine, south. 
 
 He was bom in Charleston, South Carolina, about the year 
 1797. 
 
 His academical education was received at the Charleston 
 College, — at that time merely a first-class high-school, which was 
 under charge of Dr. Buist, Judge King, and Dr. Jledley. 
 
 His collegiate education he received at Yale College, of 
 which he entered the Sophomore class in 18 11, and graduated 
 in due course in 18 14. Upon graduation at Yale, he entered 
 immediately upon the study of medicine in the office of Dr. P. 
 G. Prioleau, at that time the most eminent physician in the 
 South. 
 
 In 181 7, and the two following years, he attended lectures in 
 the University of Pennsylvania, in the days of Chapman, Physic, 
 and Wistar, — when these and like lights made that University 
 the first of its kind in America. In 1 8i 9 he received his diploma 
 and returned to his native city, and entered at once upon a 
 largely successful practice. 
 
 In 1823 he delivered a course of lectures on Physiology and 
 Pathology, before the medical students of the city. It was 
 
140 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 about this time that he began to agitate the matter of establish- 
 ing a Medical College in Charleston. In the Medical Society 
 of the city he was the mover of a petition to the Legislature of 
 the State for a charter to estabhsh a Medical School. The 
 petition prevailed, and the school went into operation imme- 
 diately — in the year 1824. He was elected without opposition 
 to the Professorship of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine, 
 which chair he held until 1832 — eight years — when he re- 
 signed it. 
 
 In 1833 he was appointed to the same chair in the Medical 
 College of the State of South Carolina, then recently estab- 
 lished by the Legislature, which position he held consecutively 
 for fourteen years. 
 
 In 1847 he was called to the New- York University to fill the 
 chair made vacant by the death of Prof. Revere. After three 
 years' labour there, he returned to his former professorship in 
 Charleston, and continued to fill the same with great distinction 
 for several years. ' 
 
 Since tlie war, in which he lost all his property, he has been 
 called to the chair of the Practice of Medicine in the Jefferson 
 Medical College of Philadelphia, where he continues the work 
 of his lifetime, associated with such men as Meigs, Dunglfeon, 
 and Pancoast. 
 
 During the year 1868, he contributed some striking and sug- 
 gestive papers on the Correlation of Forces^ to Lippincott's 
 Magazine, which present the progress of physical science in 
 that department with great force and fairness. 
 
 Dr. Dickson's published works are: — 
 
 1. Dengue: its History, Pathology, and Treatment. This work, 
 I believe, was published in 1826 or 1827, whenthat disease was 
 prevailing, or beginning to prevail, in the West Indies and in the 
 Gulf States of the Union. 
 
 2. Essays on Pathology and Therapeutics, — ^being the substance 
 of a course of lectures delivered in the Medical College of South 
 Carolina. Two volumes, octavo. PubUshed in 1845. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 14X 
 
 3. Essays on Slavery. 1845. 
 
 4. Essays on Life, Sleep, Pain, &>€. A duodecimo, published 
 in Philadelphidj in 1852. 
 
 5. Elements of Medicine. A compendious view of Pathology 
 and Therapeutics. An octavo, published in Philadelphia, in 1855. 
 
 A New York journal, upon tlie occasion of Dr. Dickson's 
 removal from that city to Charleston, makes this general estimate 
 of his literary character : " Dr. Dicksonj we believe, is one of the 
 most classically elegant writers upon medical science in the 
 United States. He ranks with Chapman and Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes in the grace of his periods as well as in the thoroughness 
 of his learning and the exactness and acuteness of his logic. 
 Like Holmes, too, he is a poet, and generally, a very accom- 
 plished litterateur." 
 
 This is' high praise, but not too high, — is rather under tlian 
 over the mark. 
 
 It may be considered a fact noteworthy in this connection 
 that Dr. Dickson delivered the first Temperance Lecture ever 
 listened to south of Mason and Dixon's line. 
 
 The following poem is quoted manifestly not as a fair speci- 
 men of Dr. Dickson's poetry, but as an interesting production, — 
 one that gathers its main power from its entourages. The person 
 who gave it to the pubhc makes this note, explanatory : "To 
 appreciate it properly, it must be remembered that the author is 
 the oldest lecturer on Medicine in the United States, and is now 
 over seventy years of age, with a large family. He lost all of 
 his acquired wealth in the late war, and now lives upon his 
 salary. He has been in the chair of Practice of Medicine for 
 over fifty years, first at Charleston, then at New York, and now 
 at Philadelphia." 
 
 The poem is entitled' Ifa til mi tulidh — -the Celtic emigrant's 
 mournful refrain [ We return no more] as he leaves his native 
 hills' forever, which is imitated as the echo-line in this poem, 
 which I quote entire : — 
 
142 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Farewell to all I have loved so long. 
 Farewell to my native shore ; , 
 
 Let me sing the strain of a sweet old song, 
 "I return, I letum no more." 
 
 It breaks my heart from friends to part, 
 And mine eyes, mine eyes the tear-drops pour, 
 
 Wliile taoumfuUy I repeat the cry, 
 " I return, I return no more." 
 
 Though here I breathe in ample space. 
 
 And gather with fuller hand, 
 Naught can efface one single trace 
 
 Of my own dear distant land. 
 
 With many a beat my pulses throb. 
 And mine eyes, mine eyes the tear-drops pour. 
 
 While wearily I repeat the cry, 
 " I return, I return no more." 
 
 When others sleep I wake and weep, 
 
 To think of joys long past. 
 And wish and pray for the happy day 
 
 That shall bring repose at last. 
 
 Sad memories fill my soul with gloom. 
 And mine eyes, mine eyes the tear-drops pour, 
 
 While wearily I repeat the cry, 
 " I return, I return no more." 
 
 A. W. DILLARD. 
 
 About five years ago a story appeared in the Gulf City Home 
 Journal, a literary weekly of Mobile, which attracted a good deal 
 of attention, and tnuch favourable criticism. The story that ran 
 through a considerable number of issues, was entitled Rose Al- 
 laine, or the Veil Lifted, and was written by Mr. Dillard, — popu- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. I43 
 
 larly known, I believe, in his region as Judge Dillard. Rose 
 Allaine was said to be in die style of Mr. Dimitry ; and as being 
 in a healthy vein, vigourous, "overflowing with sympathy for 
 erring humanity, and replete with quaint, quiet, inoffensive 
 humour." To be compared favourably to Mr. Dimitry is itself 
 praise of no ordinary kind. 
 
 Mr. Dillard was born at Tuscumbia, Alabama, on the 22d 
 of April, 1827 ; and since 1834 has lived in Sumter County, of 
 that state. He received his education partly at Centre College, 
 Kentucky, and partly at Jackson College, Pennsylvania. Spent 
 a year at editing. In 1856 was elected Judge of Probate of 
 Sumter County, and held the office for six years. Has written 
 a good deal in politics, being a conservative and anti-secession 
 partisan. Was a delegate to the Democratic Convention in 
 Charleston, in i860. Has written some critiques upon Thomas 
 Carlyle, Byron, Poe, zxAMeek; numerous articles upon general 
 subjects, as the Jews, Dreams, and literary topics generally; 
 and quite a number of tales, of which we recall the Mountain 
 Robber, a story of horrors and psychological mysteries. Has 
 written for the Southern Literary Messenger, New- York News, 
 Field and Fireside, and most of the southwestern literary news- 
 papers. He has a story now ready for publication. With a 
 large family, in times like these, Mr. Dillard has but little 
 leisure for literary diversion. He is at present living at l^iving- 
 ston, the county seat of Sumter, Alabama, practicing law. 
 
 CHARLES DIMITRY. 
 
 If I were called upon to indicate that one of our Southern 
 journalists — journalists by profession — whose prospects of 
 ultimate high literary success appear to me die fairest, I should 
 indicate Charles Dimitrj'. It may be necessary, for tlie careless 
 reader's sake, to call attention to the fact that I regard literature 
 
144 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 and journalism as by no means identical. I expect Mr. Dimi- 
 tr/s success to be literary rather than journalistic. 
 
 The following resumi of an analysis of Mr. Dimitr/s literary 
 character, by a northern poet and journalist, is given as fair and 
 discriminative : ^- 
 
 " Mr. Dimitry has literary talent of a singular and command- 
 ing order ; and, should he succeed in getting a commission in the 
 literary army at all, will not rank less than a brigadier-general. 
 Three qualities as a romanticist he has, which are qualities indis- 
 pensable, to him who would write a good novel, viz. : — 
 
 " I. An unusual capacity for continuous and thoroughly modu- 
 lated construction. In other words, in the invention and control 
 of the elements of plot he possesses that subtle capacity which 
 enables him to manage the details of a story, and to imbue them 
 with peculiar interest. 
 
 " 2. An ability for imaginative colouring, and a peculiarly subtle 
 control of its various shades, from the warmth of passion to the 
 gloomy Gothicism of despair. 
 
 " 3. Considerable analytic ability, especially of the introspective 
 sort, which enables him to judge minutely of the effect of a given 
 colour upon the imagination and heart of the reader. 
 
 " In his style there is a dash of Dickensism, which is unpleas- 
 antly suggestive ; and in his titles he is a trifle Miss Braddonish 
 — by which we mean sensational. In fact, in the phrase Guilty 
 or not Guilty, which was the name of his first novel, and in the 
 Alderly Tragedy, which was the name of his second, there is a 
 hint of the Braddon way of doing things." 
 
 Mr. Dimitry has written the following novels : — 
 
 1. Guilty or not Guilty. 1864. Published in serial. 
 
 2. Angela's Christmas. 1865. Also a serial. 
 
 7,. The Alder ley Tragedy. 1866. Published in 77/i? i^«V/(/ a«(^ 
 Fireside, newspaper. 
 
 4. The House in Balfour Street. 1869. This is a story of 
 London life, tragic, passionate, but a little dreamy, — reminding 
 one, by some vague temper pervading it, of Hawthorne and 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 14S 
 
 Dickens, at one and the same time, while it is utterly unlike both. 
 There is as much of the poet as of the romaticist in it. Notwith- 
 standing these drawbacks, I should be puzzled to pick out three 
 other American writer^ who could produce as fine a novel. 
 
 These are all distinctly able, and all clearly above the range 
 of the popular novels of tlie day. There is nothing commonplace, 
 or flimsy, or feeble, abpui 9.ny of themw . 
 
 As a journalist, I believe Mr. Dimitry has been quite success- 
 ful ; and he has been connected with the editorial management 
 of some prominent Southern periodicals, and is now among the 
 fraternity in New YOrk. 
 
 As a poet, our author has done some handsome things. In his 
 line, Farewell, ma mie, since part we must, and Viva Italia, are 
 sprightly and spirited, — a bit French, it is true, but well in their 
 way, notwithstanding. I oflfer, as a poem of more vigour than 
 either of those mentioned,. Who Shall Be Our Standard-Bear er? 
 ■ — which is a later production, and one whose subject is not 
 devoid of popular interest, at least in the South : — 
 
 I. 
 
 Brothers ! when our cannons rust are. 
 And our children's chUdren dust are, 
 Who shall pierce the tears and laughter 
 Of the days to come hereafter, 
 With the memory of his story? 
 Whose the triumph and the glory 
 Of the rh'an who bore the standard, 
 
 Chiefest, in the struggling vanguard, 
 
 Who was greater, pui-er, irarer, — 
 Who shall be our standard-bearer? 
 
 II. 
 Who was he who, great as good, 
 In the breach supremely stood, — 
 A simple man, a soldier true, 
 When around his country's shrine 
 Gathered threat'ning war, and drew 
 'Gainst our waiting stalwart few 
 Half a hundred thousand men? 
 13 
 
146 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Southward poured from hill and glen 
 
 Rank on rank, and line on line. 
 
 Till the cloud of havoc grew 
 
 Black in heaven's sight, and burst 
 
 In a storm of guns accurst 
 
 Where the swarming hosts came down 
 
 'Gainst the fair, beleaguered town. 
 
 Then our greatest soldier came 
 
 At the setting of the sun, 
 
 Pierced the doubtful battle's flame. 
 
 And with devastating blow 
 
 Struck the hostile standards low. 
 
 And each broken regiment 
 
 Back through midnight chaos sent, 
 
 Red with blood and pale with shame, — 
 
 So the stubborn field was won ! 
 
 III. 
 Ye saw him, mountains of Luray, 
 When banded battle spent its pride 
 In one long week of dolorous fray 
 Against his slender ranks in vain, 
 Till, like a lion, galled, at bay, 
 Vexed by the hunter's cries and stir, 
 He turned and poured the bloody charge 
 Of dauntless men at Winchester, 
 And as the tempest lifts the main 
 Swept Port Republic's flaming marge. 
 And northward ever, and afar. 
 Rolled back the wreck-encumbered tide 
 With storm of swift, disastrous war ! 
 
 IV. 
 A day of rest — a time of pause ! 
 And la ! once more the menaced cause 
 Called unto him, her chiefest son. 
 From warring Richmond, where the brunt 
 Of battle shook the city's front 1 
 Then, answering, came our trusted one 
 From Shenandoah's rocky glen, 
 Articulate in roar of gun. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 147 
 
 And cheers of greatly-daring men, 
 And roll of fierce, avenging drums. 
 And din of clamorous war, that filled 
 With sudden fear the hostile rank ; 
 Till higher, higher, higher thrilled 
 The peal of battle on the flank. 
 And seaward swept the foeman down. 
 And jubilant grew the rescued town, 
 AAThile all our soldiers with acclaim 
 Threw up their caps with fierce hurrah. 
 And cheered and blessed his simple name. 
 Crying, "Behold! our greatest comes ! 
 Our chiefest chief — our Joshua !" 
 And later — when Manassas' Plain 
 The hurly-burly felt again. 
 And rush of charging squadrons knew. 
 And saw once more the bleeding rout — 
 His loud defying bugles blew. 
 And Idng victorious flags threw out. 
 Before the walls of Washington ! 
 
 Again, O trusty chief ! awake 
 Thy cannons for thy country's sake ! 
 By Rappahannock's furrowed heath. 
 Above the bleak December snows, 
 Anon the countless standards rose 
 And charge-compelling trumpets' blare 
 From Falmouth fed the hungry air. 
 The while, on every windy slope, 
 Our guns gave greeting to the foe 
 And swept the surging ranks with death ! 
 Then roser in wrath our country's hopfe. 
 And bared his strong right arm to slay, 
 And where the battle's hottest breath 
 Gave fiercest warning of the fray 
 Smote, with a sudden, desperate blow. 
 The circumventing ranks, and lo ! 
 The storm of conflict passed away ! 
 
148 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Who saw him at the last ? 
 
 When Rappahannock's ruined fane 
 
 The loud artillery shook again? 
 
 Who saw him, when he passed. 
 
 Grave and calm and resolute, 
 
 Through the tangled Wilderness, 
 
 Foeward, while the sullen roar 
 
 Of distant guns the May wind bore. 
 
 An hour within the jungle mute — 
 
 An hour of terrible pause ! while he 
 
 Prayed imto God for victory 
 
 And all his arms that day to bless, — 
 
 Then gave the foeman to the sword ; 
 
 And through the covert's mazes swept 
 
 With battle's multitudinous clang , 
 
 And where the hostile columns crept 
 
 An avalanche of fire poured. 
 
 And shoreward hurled th' invading power ! 
 
 And all that desperate, turbulent day. 
 
 Rose with the greatness of the fray. 
 
 Until that dark, calamitous hour — 
 
 A bleeding country's doom and knell — 
 
 When ambushed tongues of flame out-leapt, 
 
 A sudden murderous volley rang — 
 
 And lo ! in Victory's arms our standard-bearer fell I 
 
 Beat, funeral drums — 
 
 For our mighty captain comes. 
 
 Dead, and lowly as the least he led ! 
 Weep, beleaguered town, 
 For thy tower shaken down. 
 
 And thy steadfast, firm protector dead ! 
 ' Good he was and great ! 
 Well he loved his State, 
 
 And in his heart did ever wear her ! 
 Wherefore shall she pray 
 For his rest alway — 
 
 Her leader and her great sword-bearer 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 149 
 
 VIII. 
 Brothers ! when our cannons rust are. 
 And our children's children dust are, 
 He shall pierce the tears and laughter 
 Of the days to come hereafter * 
 With the inembry of his story. 
 And the fullness of our glory ! 
 He was greater, purer, rarer,! — 
 He shall be our standard-bearer. 
 New York, Augmt, 1867. 
 
 Washington, D. C, is the birthplace of Mr. Dimitry. He is a 
 son of Professor Alexander Dimitry, formerly of Louisiana, and 
 now resident iii Brooklyn, New York. Our author is a graduate 
 of Georgetown College. The name aiid nationality are Greek. 
 
 I have never met Mr. Dimitry; but the northern journalist 
 from whom I quoted above, says of hini; — 
 
 "Mr. Dimitry i? about five feet seven, aiid of full habit. Has 
 a large, well-developed head, dark eyes and expressive, a face 
 slightly /(7«^«t a rather angulaf forehead, and a straight nose. 
 Walks firmly,'iand with a sort of Straight-ahead gait. Converses 
 generally — judging from a brief acquaintance — in a rather 
 earnest, quiet way, and in low tones. Is [1867] twenty-hine 
 years of age, and ulunarried. Dresses neatly and rather stylishly^ 
 - and in manners is a gentleman of' the bluest blood." 
 
 Mr. Dimitry uses his pen — as he does most things — with 
 niceness. His manuscript, especially his epistolary style, is fault- 
 lessly neat, legible, graceful, and uniform, — qualities which are 
 a' part of the man himself. It also indicates resolute will, capa- 
 city to resist depressiop,^ great memory, consistency, clearness of 
 thought, taste for music, little care.for the flurry of notoriety, but 
 a pervading aspiration and hope. His "copy" is not quite so 
 scrupulously prepared, but always easily legible, and punctuated 
 as he desires it to be printed. 
 
ISO LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. ANNA PEYRE DINNIES. 
 
 Mrs. DiNNiES, now a resident of New Orleans, is a native of 
 Georgetown, South Carolina. Her father, Judge Shackleford, 
 moved, while she was an infant, to Charleston, where her educa- 
 tion was completed. 
 
 In 1830 she married John C. Dinnies, Esquire, of St. Louis, 
 Missouri, where she lived until a few years before the late war, 
 when she moved to New Orleans. 
 
 As a writer, Mrs. Dinnies has generally appeared in the periodi- 
 cal press under tlie pseudonym of Moina. She has contributed 
 to most of the leading literary periodicals of the South, both 
 weekly and monthly. Her series in the Catholic Standard, a 
 weekly edited by her husband, entitled Rachel's What-Not, at- 
 tained a favourable popularity ; so also did a series called Ran- 
 dom Readings, in the same. 
 
 In 1847 she pubhshed her only volume thus far — The Floral 
 Year, — a coUecition of one hundred poems, arranged in twelve 
 bouquets, for the different months of the year. The edition was 
 soon exhausted, but no subsequent one has been brought out. 
 At the opening of the War of Secession, she was making ready a 
 collection of her miscellaneous works, verse and prose, for publi- 
 cation ; but the war cut short the labour, and it so stands to-day. 
 
 The poem by Mrs. Dennies that has touched most hearts 
 by its natural and genuine pathos, its simplicity, and its truthful- 
 ness, is The Wife. I give it as characteristic of boda harp and 
 heart : — 
 
 I could have stemmed misfortune's tide. 
 
 And borne the rich one's sneer, — 
 Have braved the haughty glance of pride, 
 
 Nor shed a single tear ; 
 I could have smiled on every blow 
 
 From life's full quiver thrown, 
 While I but gaze on thee, and know 
 
 I shall not be "alone." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 15 1 
 
 I could — I think I could — have brooked. 
 
 E'en for a time, that thou 
 Upon my fading face hadst looked 
 
 With less of love than now; 
 For then I should at least have felt 
 
 The sweet hope still my own 
 Ta win thee back, and, whilst I dwelt 
 
 On earth, not been ^' alone." 
 
 But thus to see from day to day 
 
 Thy brightening eye and cheek, 
 And watch thy life-sands waste a^vay. 
 
 Unnumbered, dow, and meek ; 
 To meet thy smiles of tenderness. 
 
 And catch the feeble tone 
 Of kindness, ever breathed to bless, 
 
 And feel I'll be ■"alone; " 
 
 To mark thy strehgfh each hour decay, 
 
 And' yet thy hopes grow stronger. 
 As, filled with heavenward trust, they say 
 
 Earth may not claim thee longer ; 
 Nay, dearest, 'tis too much^ — this heart 
 
 Must break when thou art gone ; 
 It must not be ; we must not part ; 
 
 I could not live "alone.'' 
 
 In a similar vein is Wedded Love, — a poem of more energy 
 and more art : — 
 
 Come, 1 ouse the^ dearest, 'tis not well 
 
 To lei the spirit brood 
 Thus daikly o'er the cares that swell 
 
 Life's current to a flood. 
 As brooks, and torrents, rivers,' all 
 ' Increase the gulf in which they fall. 
 Such thoughts, by gathering up the rills 
 Of lesser griefs, qiread real Ills, 
 And ^vith their gloomy shades conceal 
 The lapdniarks Hope would else reveal. 
 
1 52 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Came, rouse thee now ; I know thy mind. 
 
 And would its strength awaken ; 
 Proud, gifted, noble, ardent, kind, — 
 
 Strange thou shouldst be thus shaken ! 
 But rouse afresh each energy, 
 And be what heaven intended thee ; 
 Throw from thy thoughts this wearying weight. 
 And prove thy spirit firmly great ; 
 I would not see thee bow below 
 The angry storms of earthly woe. 
 
 Full well I know the generous soul 
 
 Which warms thee into life, — 
 Each spring which can its powers control 
 
 Familiar to thy. wife j 
 For deemest thou she had stooped to bind 
 Her fate unto a common mind? 
 The eagle-like ambition nursed 
 From childhood in her heart, had first 
 Consmned with its Promethean flame. 
 The shrine — then sunk her soul to shame. 
 
 Then rouse thee, dearest, from the dream 
 
 That fetters now thy powers : 
 Shake off" this gloom — Hope sheds a beam 
 
 To gild each clond that lowers ; 
 And though at present seems so far 
 Tlie wished-for goal — a guiding star. 
 With peaceful ray would light thee on. 
 Until its utmost bounds be won ; 
 That quenchless ray thou'lt ever prove 
 In fond, undying, wedded love. 
 
 Different from these, and a gem in its way, is the Greek Slave. 
 The poem is introduced by a quotation from Norman's Pam- 
 phlet, giving this explanatory note of the legend, so to speak, of 
 Powers' Greek Slave : — 
 
 " A Grecian maiden, made captive by the Turks, and exposed 
 at Constantinople for sale. The cross and locket visible amid 
 the drapery, indicate that she is a Christian, and beloved." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 153 
 
 This is Mrs. Dinnies' poem : — 
 
 Move gently, gently, — Galatea lives ! 
 
 Again hath Genius waked to life the stone ! 
 Art, with creative touch, here beauty gives. 
 
 And matchless grace and purity are shown ! 
 Mark the expression on her brow and cheek. 
 And start not if those parted lips should speak ! 
 
 Gently, aye, gently, in her presence move ; 
 
 A sacred tlung is sorrow such as hers ! 
 For, though her Christian faith its depth reprove. 
 
 Its hushed emotion every Teature stirs. 
 The swelling nostril, and the lipU slight curl. 
 Betray thy struggles, hapless captive girl ! 
 
 Thy faultless figure in its perfect grace. 
 Charms but a moment as we lift our eyeis 
 
 Up to the holier beauty of thy face. 
 
 Where the sad history of thy young life lies ; 
 
 Engraven on each lineamerit serene 
 
 Is what thou art -^ what once thy fate has been. 
 
 Beloved — how deeply, let thy beauty tell ! 
 
 Wooed — ^as fair maids are ever wooed and won ! 
 Tom from thine early home, where loved ones dwell. 
 
 And placed in chains for men to gaze upon ! 
 Deep is thy grief, young girl ! but strength is given 
 To bear its burthen by thy trust in ieaven ! 
 
 Yes ! strength is gpiven by that faith divine. 
 To thy proud spirit, to sustain its woe. 
 
 And through thy lovely features still to shine. 
 Veiling their beauty in its own mild glow ; 
 
 While every shade seems so instinct with life. 
 
 We deem thee living — Ulte Pygmalion's wife. 
 
iS4 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. SARAH A. DORSEY. 
 
 -' Along with Mrs. Preston of Virginia, and a few — I feel con- 
 strained to say a veryiew — others, who have not received some 
 inspiration from Plutus as well as Minerva, stands Mrs. Dorsey 
 of Louisiana. She was born to affluence, was educated and has 
 lived in the same style, until the war somewhat diminished the 
 means at her command. The wealtiiy in the soutliwest know 
 how to live en prince; and no less to seek and enjoy the ad- 
 vantages of culture than, those of ease or enjoyment. Mrs. 
 Dorsey — nie Ellis — is a daughter of Mr. Thomas C. Ellis, of 
 Natchez, and was born upon her father* splantation, near that 
 city. She was tenderly and carefully educated ; has been a stu- 
 dent all her life ; has travelled a good deal ; mingled much in 
 society; and is an adept of the harp and the pencil. In 1853 
 she became the wife of Mr. Samuel W. Dorsey, of Louisiana, 
 the eldest son of Chief Justifce Thomas B. Dorsey, of Maryland. 
 
 Mrs. Dorsey began her literary career by writing for The 
 Churchman, of New York. She received from that journal the 
 nom de plume of Filia EcclesicB, and retained that of Filia in 
 many of her subsequent writings. She was one of those practi- 
 cal Christian slave-owners, who illustrated the precepts of the 
 creed in her relations to her slaves. Since emancipation, her 
 former slaves remain with her, and she Continues to teach them 
 every Sunday, as before. She has written several serial stories 
 for periodicals, among which are The Vivians, for the Church 
 Intelligencer, Chastine, and Agnes. Her graver works are : — 
 
 1. Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, Brigadier C. S. A., 
 Ex-Governor of Louisiana. This volume appeared in 1867. 
 
 A Southern periodical says of it: "This work presents the 
 most accurate account of the late war in the Trans-Mississippi 
 Department that has been given to the public from a Southern 
 point of view." 
 
 A Northern book-notice contains this commendatory language : 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, ISS 
 
 "This is a charming volume, bearing on every, page evidence of 
 having been written by a woman of generous feeling, true refine- 
 ment, and thorough culture. The friends of Governor Allen m^y 
 be thankful that the task of doing justice to his motives . and ■ 
 honour to his memory was uijdertEiken by such competent ha,nds 
 — ;by one ta whom it was in reality a labour of love, who pos- 
 sessed the ability as well as the will to do it justice, and who 
 knew the character of the man as well as the deeds of the soldier 
 and the governor. Mrs.. Dorsey possesses all the requisites for a 
 biographer, — thorough knowledge and warjcn appreciation of her 
 subject, combined with a power of pourtraying character, and of 
 carrying with her the S3mipathies of, the reader, and retaining 
 them to the close. Governor Allen is a flesh-and-blood likeness, 
 not a coldly accurate, inanimate portrait, the features perfect, but 
 the expression wanting. No one can read the " Recollections," 
 without having before his mind's eye a correct idea of the warm- 
 hearted, clear-headed, liberal-minded governor of Louisiana, 
 whose principles had all the warmth of feeling, and whose impulses 
 all the strength and permanence of resolves. It is evident that 
 the biographer has not 'made up' her subject, for though she 
 does justice to his virtues and talents and his many admirable 
 and lovable qualities, she does not pass over his mistakes of 
 judgment nor errors of action. Indeed, so far is this from being 
 the case, that his very foibles and pecuharities are made known 
 to the reader, as well as his habits of thought, his religious views, 
 liis literary tastes, his political convictions, his mental and moral 
 idiosyncracies." 
 
 When tlie Troy (New York) Daily Times said of this biogra- 
 phy, •' The book is a thorough exhibit of Southern spirit," it gave 
 an admirable touch of description; for Southern spirit beams 
 out .in every lineament of the man represented, and in every 
 impulse, of the heart that tells us about him. The book was 
 ,written at Governor Allen's dying request. ; 
 
 2. Lucia Dare: A Novel. By Filia. 1867. This is a war- 
 novel, and as such depended a good deal upon the opportuneness 
 
156 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of its appearance. Even that failed to make it a decided success. 
 A notice-writer says of it : " It shows cleverness, it has vivacity, 
 it contains incident, and is intelligent and readable.'' There is 
 pith in this sentence. The female characters are drawn with 
 decidedly better touches than the male. Of these, Lucia Dare 
 is perhaps the tamest, while Louise Peyrault, and Grace Sliarp, 
 and Padine are vivid ; and Jennie, the negress, is a portraiture 
 that future times will probably preserve when Jennie's race shall 
 have passed from the land they now occupy. 
 
 3. Agnes Graham. This novel appeared in the Southern 
 Literary Messenger, in 1863 ; or an abridgement of it appeared 
 there, and the complete work is soon to appear in book form 
 from a publishing-house of New Orleans. 
 
 MRS. FANNY MURDAUGH DOWNING. 
 
 ' y One of the best results — I beheve the very best result, if not 
 the only good one — of the war of secession was its influence in 
 awaking and developing dormant genius. Many, roused by the 
 stringent necessities incident to such times, have bestirred them- 
 selves to think, to create thoughts, and to give utterance to 
 them. Many have " learned in suffering" what they "taught in 
 song." Many sprang at a bound from the nothingness of ordi- 
 nary life to the sphere of the aspiring and the gifted. 
 
 Among those who sprang into public favour, under tlie opera- 
 tion of these causes, I think the subject of this sketch one of the 
 most noteworthy. The contrasts in her life between luxury and 
 the trials incident to such a war, and between the unawakened 
 dreamy ease of peace and happiness and the positiveness of a 
 genius fully aroused, are in every sense striking and significant. 
 Although as a girl she was known to be possessed of abilities 
 sufficient to warrant success in literature, no occasion of demon- 
 strating those abilities had ever arisen. It was late in the autumn 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 157 
 
 — on the last day of October — of 1862, that she, then'a wife and 
 a mother, wrote her iirst poem — a little song called Folia Au- 
 tumni. There was merit in this first effusion; and, in the dozen 
 scores of poems produced since then, there are few that are not 
 well done, many that are striking, and some, as I shall show, 
 that are brilliant. I regard her chiefly as a poet, though she has 
 wrought in prose as well, and rather more volumino'usly ; still, 
 that which mainly entitles her to a place among our Southern 
 writers is her verge-writing. 
 The most noticeable of Mrs. Downing's works are these : — 
 I. Nameless. A novel, published in Raleigh, North Caro- 
 lina, in 1865, and had only a fair success, labouring under the 
 disadvantage of being published in the South. The story is one 
 of English life, and the interest is well sustained, though there 
 are many evidences of haste in the preparation of the work. 
 Indeed, I am advised that the whole book was substantially 
 written — made ready for the press — in about a week. As a 
 first attempt, it was adventurous, and the wonder is that it was 
 not a signal failure. 
 
 ». Pluto : the Origin of Mint Juleps A story in verse, 
 "being the sad story and lamentable fate of the fair Minthe," 
 ^published, or rather printed, in 1867. This poem appeared 
 under the masculine authorial nom de plume of Frank Dashmore. 
 It is a playful effusion, marked by unmistakable ability, and full 
 of fine hits, sly humour, and playful fancy, with no want of gen- 
 uine fire. It is a species of melange humour, in which the bur- 
 lesque and mock-heroic prevail, which has been compared to 
 the Rev. Mr. Barham's celebrated Ingoldsby Legends. But the 
 style and tone vary from scene to scene. A few verses will 
 serve to illustrate this matter of style : 
 
 It chanced, as his Majesty wandered, one day, 
 Thrpugh his realm, in a listlessly loitering way, 
 That he came to a ferry. 
 From which a grim wherry 
 Crossed over Cocytus, a river so very 
 14 
 
IS8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Peculiar, that really, believe it who can. 
 It was wholly a river and partly a man I 
 
 It was certainly water, 
 
 And yet had a daughter. 
 So fair and so lovely, that every one thought her 
 A goddess, and numberless suitors had sought her 
 With patient persistence, which certainly ought to 
 Have melted hei heart, , and induced her to leave 
 Her watery old father, whose name means " to grieve." 
 King Pluto had heard of the fame of this maid. 
 And though an old gentleman, sober and staid, 
 " Very married," besides, had no business to know 
 Any charms in black eyes, or in shoulders of snow. 
 
 The venerable and lore-logged names of the divinities of 
 classic mythology are manipulated witli a levity and a skill that 
 reminds one sometimes of Jerrold's Heathen Mythology. 
 
 3. Perfect Through Suffering. A tale in prose, published 
 serially in The Land We Love, during the year 1867. In point 
 of merit as a novel, it ranks far above Nameless, — and this supe- 
 riority comes mainly from the greater care given to the work — 
 the finer effort, and more time taken in its preparation. I 
 presume it will be reproduced in book form soon. 
 
 4. Florida. A tale of the Land of Flowers. This is a serial 
 story, written for the Southern Home Journal, and is probably 
 the author's best novel. Indeed, .everything she writes indicates 
 a steady advancement in the maturing of her powers — this 
 remark applying with perhaps more force to her verse than to 
 her prose. 
 
 As already stated, I regard Mrs. Downing as more than all 
 things else, a poet ; and I shall give a few specimens to illustrate 
 the opinion. 
 
 Of Mrs. Downing" s minor poems, the Legend of Catawba is 
 the longest, and in point of merit ranks high. It is, however, a 
 legend — a narrative — and as such can hardly rank with the 
 best poetry, however good in itself One other point militates 
 against its taking the first rank among her poems — that it is a 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 159 
 
 supernatural story, and an impossible legend. Still, it is rich with 
 the sweetest of poetry, and redolent of the true aroma of genius 
 and feeling. Touches of playful fancy sparkle here and there, 
 with the happiest effect always. This eompliment to "Eve's 
 stately daughters," is happily suggestive and gracefully turned : — 
 
 And with their soft and starry eyes 
 Uplifted to the beaming skies, 
 Drew angels from their home above 
 To one more sweet — the heaven of love 1 
 
 Egomet Ipse is a psychological poem, full of the mad unrest 
 of the thoroughly awakened soul, — tlie sofil thrown back upon 
 itself, and into its very self-presence, with questions of life and 
 death. A few stanzas will give the spirit of this Browning-like 
 poem : — 
 
 Every human soul, they cry, 
 
 Bears God's image, clear and plain. 
 Can a creature such as I 
 
 Kindred with Jehovah claim? 
 
 I, whose dim uncertain sense 
 
 Scarce knows mortal day from night. 
 Partner of Omnipotence,. 
 
 Portion of Eternal Light 1 
 
 Maker ! make my knowledge more, 
 
 Or my cravings somewhat less ; 
 Give me from Thy boundless store 
 
 Notliingness or rich excess ! 
 
 Clear these burning doubts for me. 
 
 Shrive me that those doubts arise ; 
 Father! if a part of Thee, 
 
 Raise me to my native skies ! 
 
l6o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I would sound their fathoms deep, 
 I would to their centres go ; 
 
 Though with knowledge sorrows creep. 
 Though with wisdom wrestles woe ! 
 
 If a mortal pining moan 
 
 For soul-satisfyiisg bread. 
 And receive a flinty stone 
 
 From the cheating world instead. 
 
 Wilt Thou hold him all accurst. 
 
 If he fling it down in wrath. 
 And with frantic footsteps burst 
 
 Into wisdom's secret path? 
 
 Does a sin in knowledge lurk? 
 
 Must one never dare to look. 
 Lest men impious hold his work. 
 
 In creation's sealed book ? 
 
 Reverently I lift its seals, — 
 
 Shrinkingly my shoes remove ; 
 Lo ! the glowing page reveals 
 
 But Thine image and Thy love ! 
 
 By the light that love evolves. 
 All earth's glimmering haze grows bright ; 
 
 Error into truth resolves, — 
 
 Faith is changed to perfect sight ! 
 
 There is much of this philosophy — the perfect-through-suffer- 
 ing theory of the uses of adversity, and the large faith in God 
 that hushes every moan of human complaint under the outcry of 
 Hope and Trust, — there is much of tliis philosophy, I say, in 
 Mrs. Downing' s poetry. There is much of the wild and pas- 
 sionate heart-uttering of Owen Meredith in these poems. These 
 two points — and both are strong ones — are illustrated in We 
 Will Wait, which I give entire, notwithstanding its length, be- 
 cause of its inseparable unity : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. l6i 
 
 WE WILL WAIT. 
 
 Within a cliamber, which the rarest taste. 
 Conjoined with antique art and wealth, had made 
 The fitting shrine of a divinity, 
 A lovely lady sat, on whose broad brow 
 There beamed a beauty not expressed by words 
 Of our poor human language. Such a look 
 As souls may wear when purgatorial fires 
 Have burned away the many stains and soils 
 Of earthly errors, and upon them dawns — 
 Their pangs still unforgotteh — all the peace 
 And bliss of heaven. She had suffered much ; 
 Her life the reproduction of an oft-told tale, — 
 High birth, fair face, and gifted nature linked 
 To poverty. A castle, scarcely fit 
 For human habitation^ and some rare 
 And costly jewels formed her worldly dower 
 And wealth. She loved, and was beloved by one, 
 Who matched her nature as deep answereth deep. 
 They were the halves of a once-severed soul. 
 Which fitted to each other would have made — 
 Indissolubly strongs a perfect whole. 
 It might not be — such wealth of happiness 
 Is not for mortals! Duty barred their bliss 
 With adamantine chain of filial love, 
 And she with woman's wondrous strength. 
 Made sacrifice not only of hprself. 
 But herself 's dearer part — the man she loved! 
 She wedded one she loved not, save with love 
 Which women give to those whose names they bear. 
 Simply because they bear them, — due respect, 
 And calm and kindly feeling, whose sole fault 
 Was lack of love.. He, material wholly, 
 Neither looked, nor cared for more. He was content 
 To own her beauty, and to know his name 
 Derived new lustre from her sharing it ; 
 For she was "pure as her own bosom, or 
 The sjpotless ermine which adorned her robes, 
 When -with her peers of England's high-bom dames. 
 She stood before her sovereigti, and bowed down 
 14* 
 
1 62 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 In loving homage, o'er that royal hand 
 Than which a nobler one was never owned 
 By crown&i queen or woman ! Full of years. 
 Her lord was gathered to his fathers, mourned 
 With pensive sadness, — no parade of griefl 
 He blessed her as he died,. and left her young. 
 And rich, and beautifuL She had all gifts. 
 Except the one worth all, — that one was lost! 
 So knowing but too well, the happiness 
 She craved so keenly never could be hers. 
 She meekly took the lot in life God gave. 
 And used it nobly. Sitting now alone. 
 With scarcely conscious fingers she removed 
 The close-sealed stone beneath whose clinging clasp 
 The fount of memory slumbered. With a gush 
 The bubbling waters from their prison burst, 
 And with their mighty volume washed away 
 Her cares and sorrows, bringing up so clear 
 Her life's brief spring-time with its gleam of joy. 
 That though the present was not all forgot. 
 Its power to sway her vanished, and her past 
 Came back before her with such magic force. 
 That in her thoughts she was once more a girl. 
 And lived the story of her loving o'er 
 In burning words like these: — 
 
 The snow has wrapped the earth as in a mantle. 
 The midnight winds are moaning low and deep. 
 
 And I within my locked, luxurious chamber. 
 Tryst with the sheeted ghosts of memory keep. 
 
 This soft white cloak, above the frozen landscape, — 
 The weary moon's pure beams of paley gold, — 
 
 Are fitting types of my enforced existence. 
 Lit by the star of duty, clear but cold. 
 
 I sit alone with listless hands laid idly, 
 Void of all purpose, on my torpid breast ; 
 
 I wonder if its throbs would rise so calnUy, 
 If God had sent a baby there to rest! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 163 
 
 A tiny thing, with clustering chestnut ringlets, 
 And eyes — not black, but mellow, golden brown ; 
 
 It might have been — if now such thoughts are sinful, 
 God and the angels help me crush them down! 
 
 Best as it is! — yet sometimes thoughts rebellious, 
 
 Brealc through the surface of my iron will. 
 Recounting all the sweets life has denied me, 
 
 And making them by contrast sweeter still. 
 
 They do not last, those human vain repinings. 
 Though long the shadows wJiich they cast remain, 
 
 A strength comes with them, product born of suffering — 
 Faith is the opiate heaven applies to pain! 
 
 Here gazing .deep int?) the glowipg embers, , 
 Watcliing the wierd, fantastic shapes they gast, 
 
 I see, as if within a magic mirror. 
 The saddest evening of our bu?ied past, 
 
 Do you remember it, my spirit?s darling? — 
 .That autunm evening when the sun sank low 
 
 Into a sea of crimson^rested cloudlets. 
 
 And earth, and air, and heaven flamed all aglow 
 
 With fire drawn from the inmost depths of nature. 
 Though cold, and pale, and faint its radiance seemed 
 
 To that transcending, opalescent glory, ' . 
 
 Wllich in our panting bosoms flaslied and beamed; 
 
 Wlien the wild love so long walled in and fettered. 
 Burst all its barriers, and with torrent strong, 
 
 Ruslied, surged, and eddied in ecstatic passion, 
 And whirled us in delirious bliss along. 
 
 Have you forgotten the close-wooded thicket. 
 
 Whose tall pines darldedon the scarlet sky ? 
 How you besought me to explore its shadows. 
 
 How trembling, I refused, not knowing why? 
 
164 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I Icnow well now ! It was our guardian angel, 
 Who speeding swiftly from some crystal sphere, 
 
 Whispered a word of softly solemn warning 
 To iny unconscioiis, half-reluctant ear. 
 
 We lingered, wandering through the quiet viUs^e 
 Till evenitig merged in twilight dusk and chill, 
 
 And your dear hands, which held my own so fondly. 
 Clasped me in close caresses fbnder stiU. 
 
 Returning thence, we reached the narrow foot-path. 
 Along the craggy hillside rudely thrown. 
 
 Where you released me with a moiurtiful whispef, 
 " We part, my own love, — each must walk alone." 
 
 Ah! darling,' those sad words were too' prophetic 
 Of our dark future, with its woes and strife ; 
 
 Not only on the rugged hill-side parted, 
 
 But severed from each other through all life! 
 
 As on we crept, in words as soft and soothing 
 As mothers use when suffering babes they tend, 
 
 I tried to tell yoU that our hopeless loving 
 Must here, in its beginning, find its end. 
 
 Even as I spoke, my flattering scarlet mantle 
 Was pinioned down by two strong arms above ; 
 
 Then came a wild, sharp moan, a frantic pressure. 
 And then the first sweet kiss of perfect love. 
 
 Another, and another, till I pledded ■ 
 All faint and frightened, white as ocean's foam. 
 
 Till clin^g to you in my sudden weakness. 
 We reached the ruined castle I tailed home. 
 
 Within its lonely moss-grown porch we cowered. 
 While passion, like a tropic tempest, spumed control; 
 
 And in fierce gusts of varying bliss and anguish^ 
 Raged on resistless tlirough each frenzied soul. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. l6s 
 
 Half crazed with pain, then thjrUled with fond emotion. 
 Despair and love by turns possessed each heart ; 
 
 While yfith a stroke by which two lives were murdered. 
 We struck the blow that wrenched our love apart. 
 
 No tears — our woe lay faif beneath their sources j . 
 
 No weak regrets, nor stooping to repine : 
 Our life," our love, ourselves, with> strength unearthly 
 
 We laid with conscious hands on duty's shrine. 
 
 But ere we bound the victjins to the altar, 
 
 Or sacrificial fire above them flamed, 
 We gave our love, for one brief, glorious moment. 
 
 The rights which trampled nature loudly claimed. 
 
 One wild embrace, ; one quick, convulsive pressure. 
 
 Two souls, unite4 in one clinging kiss, 
 Beneath the influence of whose blinding sweetness. 
 
 Our spirits reeled in ecstacy of bliss. 
 
 I gave that kiss, my darling, thrilled jdth pity. 
 And love, sind pain, well knowing while we live. 
 
 That to your lonely, ever-yearning spirit 
 That little kiss was all that I could give. 
 
 No words were uttered, for all Words were useless ; 
 
 Our raptures ran beyond all human ken ; 
 Each fathomed to the plummet's utmost sounding. 
 
 Through depths of feeling never reached till then, — 
 
 And never since, — be sure of that, beloved ! — 
 
 The thought falls soft as dew on sjm-sCorched flowers ; 
 
 Whatever joys may Jmve been t^en from us, 
 Whatever blessings, this the best, is ours. 
 
 Each one to each was what no other hsid.been,. 
 
 Nor pyer could,.l?p.„ .Eacjh Xa each reyealed 
 The deepest mysteries pf our complex natures. 
 
 Henceforth from.pth^s ^Iirjce securely sealed. 
 
l66 LlVmC WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Eyes gazed in eyes and read snpemal secrets. 
 Soul unto soul celestial knowledge brought; 
 
 We reached the utmost bound allotted mortals, » 
 And revelled in a realm past human thought. 
 
 All in one moment of material measuring. 
 Though centuries of feeling filled its space; 
 
 That attribute of our grand Source was granted. 
 That much in common with serial race ! 
 
 I broke the spell: "All now is over, darling." 
 And you replied in hoarse and hollow tone : 
 
 "All but the right of loving — that is ours !" 
 
 "And heaven !" I wliispered. Then you stood alone. 
 
 Alone vfith your great sorrow ! God is gracious ! 
 
 I trust His gentle angels brought relief; 
 I hid myself within my close-locked chamber, 
 
 And wrestled in a woman's weakness with my grief. 
 
 Then laid it in its grave — heaped stones upon it ; ' 
 
 Encased my features in pride's iron mask, 
 
 Rang for my maid, and seeming just awakened. 
 Impatient bade her hasten to her task. 
 
 She did it well. The mirror's polished surface 
 Gave back a woman men call wondrous fair. 
 
 Decked in a robe of fashion's costly shapmg. 
 With diamonds glittering over breast and hair. 
 
 They gleamed and glowed with flashing scintillations 
 Of crimson flame, so rare and highly prized ; 
 
 I looked upon them in their mocking splendour. 
 And thought them tears by suffering crystallized 1 
 
 Oh ! what a theatre this hollow world is. 
 And with what matchless skill we women play ! 
 
 I joined my guests, the very queen of pleasure, 
 And led the revel, gayest of the gay. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. l6f 
 
 You found me centre of a brilliant circle. 
 
 And told in courtly phrases, brief and few, 
 Youi sudden summons and enforced departure. 
 
 Then bowed, held out your hand, and said adieu. 
 
 Within your outstretched palm my fingers nestled. 
 
 As light as snow-flakes, for an instant's space. 
 I said "Bon voyage, — we shall miss you greatly ; 
 
 Good-by, Lord Manfred," — smiling in your face. 
 
 Smiles, on the velvet lips so late your playmates. 
 Smiles in the liquid eyes you called your stars, — 
 
 Bright, beaming smiles of one who knew no sorrow. 
 And all the while beneath my bosom's bars. 
 
 My torn and tortured heart was moaning fiercely. 
 Like some caged creature stung with lash and thong ; 
 
 And as you vanished through the curtained doorway. 
 One struck the prelude of a promised song ! 
 
 Sublime in strength, I sang the Miserere, 
 And singing, grasped my silk-draped side so tight. 
 
 Clutching and wringing with such cruel pressure. 
 That livid bruises stained its surface white. 
 
 Ere many days, by aid of cooling unguents. 
 The black bruise faded from the tender skin ; 
 
 Long yeafs nave passed, but never balm, nor healing 
 Has sooffi^ the blacker bruise that lies within ! 
 
 God loves us all, His weak, created children. 
 Helps us to seek the right and shun the wrong ; 
 
 Tempers earth's plowshares into heaven's falchions. 
 And out of suflering makes us grow so strong ! 
 
 You went into the world, and on Fanie's temple 
 Engraved your name in letters deep and clear ; 
 
 I did my duty and fulfilled my mission 
 With equal strength in woman's smaller sphere. 
 
1 6,8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Each stands a conqueror in life's bitter battle; 
 
 The years fling lajireU ^ Time speeds them on, 
 And none suspects that 'iieath the glistening garland^ 
 
 We wear an ever-pointed crown of thorn. 
 
 God knows it all ! He with suprepie compassion, 
 
 Will one day bid the constant torture cease, 
 And to our bound and sorely stricken spirits, 
 
 Will titter welcome mandate of release. 
 
 Oh, darling, then with seraph spring exultant. 
 Our souls' with earth's transgressions all forgiven. 
 
 Shall claim each other, and in endless union 
 
 Prove the full meaning of what we call Heaven ! 
 
 Mrs. Downing is intensely Southern in her feeling, as well as in 
 her genius; and by this I mean no vague generality — I have a 
 specific and definite idea, as all who study careftiUy what she 
 has written will see. The direct utterance of this feeling has 
 found vent in many poems, especially in those that touch upon 
 the distinguished state prisoner for several months held in Fort- 
 ress Monroe. These fervid outbursts of indignant and outraged 
 feeUng were characteristic of the poet as a Southron ; and the 
 utterance of such feeling, clothed in drapery so tropical, points 
 out the Southern genius, with its whole-souled, unreserved frank- 
 ness, and incautious expression of the ruling impulse. 
 
 I can not refrain from quoting Sunset Musings, one of Mrs. 
 Downing" s early poems, as I have given nothing in the same 
 vein. That it is a gem in its way, no genuine lover of such 
 sentiment will for a moment fail to see. It is the meditative 
 heart in accord with sympathetic Nature : — 
 
 Love of mine, the day is done. 
 
 All the long, hot summer day ; 
 In the west the golden sun 
 
 Sinki in purple clouds away. 
 Nature rests in calm repose, 
 Nftt ai zephyr rocks the rose, — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 169 
 
 Not a ripple on the tide ; 
 And the little boats, that glide 
 Lazily along its stream, 
 Flit like shadows in a dream. 
 Not one drooping leaf is stirred — 
 Bee, and butterfly, and bird. 
 Silence keep. Above, arouad. 
 Hangs a stiUness so profound 
 That the spirit awe-struck shrink^ 
 As of Eden-days it thinks, 
 Half-expectant here to see 
 The descending Deity. 
 
 Love of mine, when life's fierce sun 
 
 To its final setting goes, 
 All iK long bright journey run — 
 
 Varied course of joys and woes, — 
 May there fall a soothing calm. 
 Bringing on its wings a balm 
 To our hearts, which achirig fed 
 " Here each giief has set its seal 1 " 
 May a stillness soft as this, 
 Wrap our souls in purest bliss. 
 Till the worry and the strife 
 Of this fever we call life. 
 With its pain and passion, cease. 
 And we rest in perfect peace ! 
 Love of mine, may we behold, 
 Eden's visitant of old, 
 As our last breath dies away 
 By us, at the close of day ! 
 
 The minor poems would make a handsome volume, of con- 
 venient size ; and it is to be hoped that that addition will ere 
 long be made to our literature. 
 
 Mrs. Downing is the second daughter of the late John W. 
 
 Murdaugh, Esquire, of Virginia, who represented his county — 
 
 Norfolk, I believe — many years in the Virginia legislature. The 
 
 family has produced some df the finest legal ability in that state. 
 
 'S 
 
I70 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 James Murdaugh, her uncle, has been justly pronounced one of 
 the ablest library lawyers in Virginia. Her education was very 
 carefully conducted by Mr. Henry Robinson, widely known in 
 the Old Dominion as a thorough and conscientious educator 
 of youth. 
 
 Miss Fanny Murdaugh became Mrs. Downing in 185 1, while 
 yet in her teens. She became the wife of Charles W. Downing, 
 Esquire, then Secreteiry of State, at Tallahassee, in the Land of 
 Flowers. She has lived several years in Charlotte, North Caro- 
 lina, where she now resides. 
 
 She is devoted to painting, music, and the fine arts generally. 
 This follows almost necessarily from the degree of sentiment, 
 taste, and culture indicated by tlie position she has taken as a 
 litterateur. She is thorough, and does nothing and feels nothing 
 by halves. 
 
 In society she is hnOiant, pronoficSe, and a universal favourite; 
 eminently fitted by culture, tastes, and extraordinary gifts .of 
 conversation, especially of repartee, to be the leader of the ton 
 — the queen of society — that she is universally in her circle 
 conceded to be. 
 
 In the difficult and womanly art of letter-writing, she has, 
 I risk nothing in venturing the opinion, no superior outside of 
 the confessed classics in that department of literature. 
 
 With a fine knowledge of the ancient classics, she never appears 
 pedantic ; and with a ready knowledge of some of the modern 
 languages, she does not obtrude mere learning upon her friends 
 and admirers. 
 
 Her character is eminently feminine — -womanly to the last 
 analysis. 
 
 In person Mrs. Downing is small, elevated in bearing, and in 
 every sense a woman of mark. Her small person, vivacity, 
 black eyes, and luxuriantly abundant black hair, go far to suggest 
 the idea of her being French, especially when taken in connec- 
 tion with her aptness at bon-mot and repartee; but yet she is 
 English in descent, and tenacious of English feelings and habits 
 of thought. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 171 
 
 MRS. KATE A. DUBOSE. 
 
 Mrs. DuBOSE is a native of England, having been born in the 
 year 1828, in Oxfordshire. 'VVhile she was an infant the family- 
 emigrated to America, settling first in Georgia, and then in Beau- 
 fort District, South Carolina. At the age of twenty she became 
 the wife of Mr. Charles W. Dubose, a prominent lawyer of Sparta, 
 Georgia, where they now reside. Their residence is known as 
 Willow Cottage — a synonym thereabouts for a cosy and elegant 
 home. - * 
 
 Mrs. Dubose has written for many periodicals — stories and 
 poems — sometimes under the nom de plume of Leila Cameron, 
 but generally under her own name. Her mind is .eminently reli- 
 gious, and this element pervades nearly every piece she has ever 
 published. She wrote a prize poem for the Orion Magazine 
 (Georgia), called IVachulla, it being a description of that famous 
 fountain in Florida, She has published but one book — The 
 Pastor's HouseJwld, or Lessotu on the Eleventh Commandment; 
 published in 1858. She wrote another, but the manuscript was 
 lost during the war. Alone, will illustrate her poetic style : — 
 
 Alone, alone ! 
 In the still eventide and early morn, 
 My spirit breathes the self-same mournful tone 
 
 When thou art gone ! 
 
 From the old elm 
 The mock-bird pours the song we loved to hear. 
 But now his notes my spirit overwhelm, — 
 
 Would thovl wert near ! 
 
 Linger not long ! 
 The loved one longs to meet thy dear caress ; 
 No voice like thine has power, in all the throng. 
 
 Her heart to bless ! 
 
172 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Do not the flowers 
 Fold up their heartrleaves; when the day is done, 
 And, sadly drooping, through the darkened hours, 
 
 Mourn for the sun ? 
 
 So I forthee^ 
 Who art the sun that gilds my earthly lot ; 
 No beauty brightens the dull world to me 
 
 Where thou art not ! 
 
 I miss thy voice 
 In that still consecrated hour, -when we 
 Were wont, -to Him who malces the earth rejoice, 
 
 To bend the knee ! 
 
 In those bright bowers 
 Where birds of Edem swell their tuneful notes. 
 And on the air, perfumed with fadeless flowers. 
 
 Their music floats ; 
 
 In that fair clime 
 The loved ones never part ; and there, my own. 
 May we forever feast on joys divine, — 
 
 ' No more alone 1 
 
 CYPRIEN DUFOUR. 
 
 This Franco-American writer is a distinguished lawyer of the 
 Crescent City. 
 
 The only work of his I have before me is his Esquisses Lo- 
 cales, — a series or collection of sketches of New-Orleans 
 celebrities, political, editorial and literary, — mainly the first, — 
 which appeared in 1847. It pnibraces forty-eight sketches; 
 and while the name of M. Dufour does not appear on the title- 
 page, it is on all hands conceded to be his, and is constantly 
 spoken of as such. 
 
 In his Lettre d' Envoi, the author, addressing his publisher, 
 thus speaks of his material : " Ces esquisses, au fond, je vous 
 
Llp-mC WRITERS OF TtfE SOUTB. 173 
 
 le dis sans fausse modestie; n'auront pas graiide poft^e. Elles 
 n'ont d'autre merite que celui d'etre saisies 3, vol d'oiseau dans 
 quelques moments de loisir. Si elles ont im tut, ce ne peut 
 pas Stre grand' chose — probablement quelques reflets de v€rit6, 
 voila tout. ■ Elles auront, par exaniple, la pretention d'indiquer 
 les qualitSs sans flatterie, comme les' travers sans m^chancetS. 
 Elles vous feront peut-6tre sourire, mais sans blesser personne. 
 Fugitives comme I'image d'un corps qui passe devant une glace, 
 vous aurez la bontS de n'y voir rien de plus. Vous souvenez- 
 vous de ce que dit un poi^te contemporain, je ne sais ou, 'k pro- 
 pos d'une de ses osuvres : Ce riest rien, dest une fantasie ! 
 Eh bien ! c'est cela." 
 
 Of himself, in the same Lettrt, he says, "II est uiiutilei de 
 me demander mon nom; il est assez obscur pour demeurer 
 inconnu. J'ai v6cu dans 1' ombre jusqu'ici ; souflfrez que j'y reste. 
 Stat umbra I" 1 i-. 
 
 CHARLES OSCAR DXTGU]^. 
 
 This Franco-American poet-editor was bom in New Orleans, 
 Louisiana, on Tuesday, the May-day of 182 1. He was edu- 
 cated, as is usual with our wealthier French Creoles, in France, 
 — the College of Saint Louis, in Paris, being his alma mater. 
 
 At the age of twenty-five he returned to the United States, 
 and at once entered upon the practice of law in New Orleans, 
 where he soon attained an enviable eminence. 
 
 He has pubKshed :-^ 
 
 1. 'JSssais Poe£ques. . This is a volume of poems, mostly 
 occasional, in which the sentiment and scenery are in a peculiar 
 way Southern. Published, witli a Preface by A. Rouquette, in 
 1847. 
 
 2. Mih, ou la Mart de la Salle. A drama founded upon inci- 
 dents in the earliest history of the poef s native state. Published 
 in 1852. 
 
 15* 
 
174 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 3. Le Cygne, ou Mingo. This is also a tragedy, of which the 
 subject is drawn from local legend and history, having an Indian 
 plot, in which Tecumseh figures, and of which Mingo, a cele- 
 brated chief, is the hero. 
 
 4. Philosophie Morale. This work was announced a year or 
 two before the war, and was to be issued in both French and 
 English, but I believe that it has not yet made its appearance. 
 
 5. Some Brochures Politiques et Philosophiques. 
 
 BALLARD S. DUNN. 
 
 In 1866, there appeared a small volume, making no claim to 
 mere literary excellence, but depending for all its interest upon 
 its facts, entitled, — 
 
 Brazil, the Home for Southerners; or a Practical Account 
 of what the Author, and Others who visited that Country for 
 the same Objects, saw and did while in that Empire. By Rev. 
 Ballard S. Dunn, Rector of St. Phillip's Church, New Orleans, 
 and late of the Confederate Army. 
 
 1^ 
 
 ^V^ MISS ELIZA ANN DUPUY. 
 
 Although Miss Dupuy is intensely Southern in her sectional 
 feelings, she is most widely known, of late years at least, as a 
 writer for the Ledger, of which the circulation and character are 
 felt to be mainly Northern. For a writer of tales to be a popular 
 contributor to that journal supposes his being in no small degree 
 sensational. 
 
 Mrs. Southworth and Miss Dupuy are the most noted of 
 Southern writers that have been favourite contributors to the 
 Ledger. 
 
 Miss Dupuy is a native of Petersburg,' Virginia, and lived 
 a while during childhood in Norfolk. She is of French descent, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 175 
 
 her father being a merchant and ship-owner of Norfolk, de- 
 scended from a Huguenot family. Miss Dupuy is a grand- 
 daughter of Captain Joel Sturdevant, who commanded a 
 company in the war of the Revolution, and served with honour 
 to its close, and is but very distantly connected with the old 
 pirate who is known as Commodore Sturdevant. 
 
 Before the daughter had reached womanhood, Mr. Dupuy 
 removed from Virginia, with his family, to Kentucky. It was 
 there that Miss Dupuy wrote her first book, — Merton, a Tale 
 of the Revolution, — in aid of her father's "efforts to retrieve 
 their fallen fortunes." 
 
 Besides Kentucky, Miss Dupuy has lived in several more 
 Southern States, especially Mississippi and Louisiana, where 
 most of her works have been written. Her books are : — 
 
 1. Merton, a Tale of the Revolution. 
 
 2. The Conspirator. A tale ofwhich Aaron Burr and his scheme 
 are the main historical md.tters, inwoven with the story. It was 
 first published serially in the New World, and later issued in 
 book form by the Appletons, of New York. Many consider this 
 the author's best novel. 
 
 3. Celeste, or the Pirate'' s Daughter. 
 
 4. The Separation. 
 
 5. The Divorce. 
 
 6. The Coquette'' s Funisfiment. 
 
 7. Florence, or the Fatal Vow. 
 
 8. The Concealed Treasure. 
 
 9. Ashleigh : a Tale of the Revolution. 
 
 10. Emma Walton, or Trials arid Triumphs. 
 
 11. The Country Neighbourhood. This is a story said to be 
 based upon actual life, and is of the style called "strong and 
 spirited." 
 
 12. The Huguenot Exiles. This is probably Miss Dupuy's 
 strong book. It deals with the legends of her family, and 
 with the history of her own race and its romantic fortunes. 
 A lady critic says of it : — 
 
176 UVING WRITEMS OF TH£ squ^ff. 
 
 "It is full of scenes of most absorbing interest, while it 
 exhibits the elegance of style and purity of diction wlnich are 
 among Miss Dupu/s characteristics as a writer. It embodies 
 the histoiy of the persecution which immediately preceded an4 
 followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by which so 
 many brave and noble subjects of Louis XIV. were driven 
 from France, to seek in our western world ' freedom to worship 
 God.' In this tale the author has gracefully interwoven the ro- 
 mantic history of her own immediate ancestor. As a historical 
 novel, it may class with the best in our language." And that is 
 saying a good deal. 
 
 13. The Planter's Daughter. A story of Southern life, of which 
 the scene lies near New Orleans. The tale is in an eminent 
 degree sensational, — in the style of Mrs. Southworth and Pro- 
 fessor Peck, with an inclination in the direction qf Miss Braddon. 
 It is redolent of murder, madness, tears, robbery, revolvers, 
 corpses, and confusions ; and trips lightly fhrough the mazes o^ 
 guilt, blood-and-thunderousi declamation, thr^3.ts, stage love- 
 making, and Italian gallantry. It is what Mr. Bonner .might 
 advertise as "a popular story, of thrilling interest." 
 
 14. A large number of serial tales and stpries tfiat have 
 appeared in ihe Ledger, from i860 to 1868; among wl:jich I 
 recognize the following : — 
 
 Autobiography of a Skeleton, i860. 
 
 Lost Deeds. By Anna Young. 1861. 
 
 Mysterious Marriage. 
 
 White Terror. 1862. 
 
 The Outlaw's £ride. 1863. 
 
 The Secret Chamber. 
 
 The Life Cruise. 1864. 
 
 The Family Secret. 1864. 
 
 Lady of Ashurst. 1865, 
 
 Fatal Error. 1866. 
 
 Evil Genius. 1867. 
 
 The Dead Heart. 1868. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SQUTH, 177 
 
 It will be apgaren,t, from this lisf of stories, published in Bon- 
 ner's iV^w-l^r^ Zi?^f^fr, that the writer continued a favourite 
 contributor to a northern periodical during the e;ntire war. It 
 will also be apparent that the stories, as far as depends, upon 
 their titles, are of the style known as sensational, or Miss 
 Braddonish. 
 
 Miss Dupuy writes four hours in the mornings, and gives the 
 afternoons to revisals. This great industiy accounts for the 
 large quantity of books she continties to throw off 
 
 MRS. SUSAN BLANGHARD ELDER. 
 
 In the number of those whose muses for the most part have 
 been silent in peace but vocal in war, is Mrs. Elder, of New 
 Orleans. Though gifted for musical utterance; by> nature and 
 culture, the allurenients of domestip life too ; fully met the 
 wants of her womaply nature, happy beyond the need of poetic 
 utterance ; but when war, with its many passions and many 
 sufferings, came, there came to her the ne^ed of more constant 
 writing. During the war, accordingly, she wrote very often for. 
 the local press, — both while still in the Crescent. City, and after 
 she was driven into exile by the exigencies of war. 
 
 Mrs. Elder is the eldest daughter of General Blanchardi of 
 the Confederate Army, previously of the United States Army. 
 While he was on duty at an extreme western militsry post, his 
 first daughter was born. 1 He, a few years afterj removed to New 
 Orleans, where the education «f his children was conducted. 
 While yet very young she was rriarried to Mr. Charles D. Elder, 
 of that city. She wrote essays, addresses, lyrics, petty dramas, 
 and literary exercises of a light nature. The war roused her to 
 graver themes. Exile into Mississippi and Alabama, during 
 the greater part of the war, called forth frequent utterances of 
 sentmients accordant to the harsher times in which her Hfe was 
 moving. She is still quite young ; and with the new stimulus of 
 
178 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 a desolated country, gives promise of more striking pen-work 
 than the past has yielded. 
 
 Chateaux en Espagne is a pleasantly turned lyric of the times, 
 and illustrates in some degree the general style of Mrs. Elder's 
 versification, — though it wants something of that vivid and in- 
 dignant tone that characterizes some of her war-songs, written 
 upon special occasions : — 
 
 Our castles in Spain are proud and high. 
 
 With lofty spires and glittering domes ! 
 We may often see, in ,the western sky, 
 
 The burnished roofs of those stately homes. 
 With their crimson banners flung out to cheer 
 Our weary hearts in their exile here. 
 
 All that was lost, in days now gone. 
 
 Is treasured up in our castle fajr ; 
 Our faded firown and our fallen throne, 
 
 Our past renown and our valour rare. 
 Our ruined hopes and evanished dreams, 
 Take lasting shapes and unfading gleams ! 
 
 Our gallant dead are restored to life, 
 
 By the balmy air of that Spanish land ; 
 Not ghastly pale from their glorious strife. 
 
 But laurel-crowned, in those halls they stand ; 
 While fretted ceiling and frescoed 4rch 
 Resound with the notes of their triumph-march. 
 
 The tender vows of the bridal day. 
 
 The light shut down 'neath the icy Hd, 
 The golden tint of the hair now gray. 
 
 Are all in our Spanish caskets hid ; 
 With the generous hopes of our boyhood's time. 
 And the nobler deeds of our manhood's prime I 
 
 In our Spanish homes no oppression stalks, 
 
 To bow the head or to crush the heart ; 
 No skeleton freedom in manacles walks. 
 
 Bleeding with wounds from a venomous dart ; 
 But Liberty free, and unfettered, and proud. 
 Wears a heavenly robe, not a horrible shroud ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 179 
 
 The future is dismal. Its clouds hang lov. 
 Darkening the present with shadows of gloom ; 
 
 But over our Spanish possessions we know 
 There's a golden glow and a tender bloom, 
 
 And a halo of beauty surpassingly bright, 
 
 In whose presence there enters no shadow of night. 
 
 If son-ow or shame, with want and dismay. 
 Ever darken the South in her valleys so fair. 
 
 Her children all know they have lands far away, — 
 They all possess stately, proud " castles in air," 
 
 Which they never can lose by tyrannical power. 
 
 And where Hope smiles serene through the gloomiest hour ! 
 
 MISS LOUISE ELENJAY. 
 
 This lady is a Virginian. She is an invalid, unable to walk. 
 The books she has written are these : — 
 
 1. Censor ia Lictoria of Facts and Folks. 
 
 2. Rising Young Men, and other Tales. 
 
 3. Letters and Miscellanies. 
 
 In 1866 I find her among the contributors of The Ladie^ 
 Home, a literary weekly of Georgia, to which she contributed 
 some earnest and sweet but sad verses, dated Pineland Place, 
 Virginia. No Room is an illustrative example : — 
 
 Shut out from life's homes, crushed down in the crowd. 
 
 Alone in life's haunts, alone in the inn ; 
 Alone m my sorrow, and shunned by the proud. 
 As if trace of deep wrong were a brand of dark sin. 
 "No room" in the palace, the cottage, the hall; 
 No rest for ray feet on the heaithstone I see, 
 " No room " for the stranger, wherever I call, 
 
 Will the "low, narrow house," have any for me? 
 
 " No room " for my love in aflfection's fond fold, 
 
 " No room " for my song in the world's maddening din ; 
 "No room " in the world, — aye, the same world of old 
 That found for the Master "710 room at the inn." 
 
l8p LIVING WRITERS, OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " No room " for the Maker jand Saviour of all. 
 
 Who came to " liis own ". and they welcomed him not ; 
 
 "No room" but the stable, the manger, the stall, — 
 Hast thou, lone and homeless, so lowly a lot ? 
 
 Is it much for thee, then, to be as thy Lord ? 
 
 Say, "little of faith," is thy courage so small? 
 Earth's "cjip of cold water" may not win reward, 
 
 But the thirst of His soul it mocked with the galL 
 The crimson-hued agony welled from his brow, 
 
 Yet, "Father, forgive!" from His dying lips fall ; 
 And " a house not with hands," he is building if flow, — 
 
 SJiame on thee, faint heart, thus to murmur at all ! 
 
 C. S. FARRAR. 
 
 Among the t"housand-and-one war-books since the war, i? Tfi-e 
 War, Its Causes and Consequences ; and C. S. Farrar, of Bolivar 
 County, Mississippi, is the author. 
 
 GEORGE FITZHUGH. 
 
 In the great battle of the age on the question of Slavery, Mr. 
 Fitzhugh stands — or, ten years ago, stood — one step in advance 
 of the front rank in the Southern line of battle. 
 
 Mr. Fitzhugh' s genius is polemic. 
 
 Hi^ organ of Destructiveness is large. 
 
 With an active and acute intellect, large stores of information, 
 a proneness to. paradox and a fondness for effects, he has given 
 much thought to the subject of Slavery — not Negro Slavery, but 
 Slavery in coiitradistinction to the universal-emancipation mania 
 of the age. He ha? very properly linked the affiliated points of 
 Slavery, and Labour. 
 
 Slavery in general, and Negro Slavery in particular, have been 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. i8t 
 
 discussed from many points of view,' — the Scriptural, theological, 
 anatomical, ethnological, ethical, historical, judicial, politico- 
 economical, sentimental, and necessitarian, — and by various 
 writers ; such as Leigh, Gholson, Brown, Harper, Smith, Ham- 
 mond, Dew, Stringfellow, Thornwell, Calhoun, Lyon, Middle- 
 ton, Seabuiy, Hopkins, Fuller, Dickson, Adams, Cobb, Simms, 
 Sloan, Holcombe, Bledsoe, ajid a host, of other names, some 
 great and some small, — not to mention poor old Billingsgate 
 BrownlQw, who made a book on the subject. 
 Mr, ritzhugh has written two books : — 
 
 1. iSoeiology for the South; or, the JFuilure of Free Society. 
 
 1854. 
 
 2. Cannibals All, or Slaves without Masters. 
 Both are able, in their way. 
 
 The Sociology is the superior of the two. It is a unique book, 
 sagacious but eccentric and discursive, bold and novel, and in an 
 eminent degree suggestive. It is extremist, but full of original 
 and living thought,—^ no re-hash of former speculations. 
 
 The book is for Slavery, and against the cardinal principle of 
 political economy, Free Trade. 
 
 The author quotes the leading defenders of Free Society to 
 prove that the true ends of socifity are not attained nor attainable 
 by it — that Free Society is a failure, a failure inevitable and fatal. 
 He maintains not only that Slavery is right, but that Non-Slavery 
 is wrong, — that nothing but Slavery can be right. 
 
 His argument is a species of reductia ad ahsurdum. 
 
 The author, of course, has a fling at the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence in its assertion of the equality of all men, — the per- 
 verted teaching imbibed by Jefferson from the vicious French 
 school of JLousseau a,nd Voltaire, who appropriated it by a similar 
 perversion from the Roman Institutes (Inst. I. Tit. III. Dig. I. Tit. 
 I. §4.),. which enounced the law of equality for a government 
 whose principles and practice on the Slavery question were as 
 well-defined and as pro-slavery as were those of Virginia or Soutli 
 Carolina. Mr. Fitzhugh annihilates the flimsy shadow of force 
 16 
 
1 82 LIVING WS ITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 that ever seemed to inhere in this sophistical proposition. I 
 mean flimsy only as it appears under his scathing analysis ; for it 
 has been a formidable stumbling-block in the way of slavery- 
 advocates. 
 
 Our author has also a fling at the whole large family of 
 modem social reforrniats — the Communists, Socialists, Proud- 
 honists, Eqiialitarians, etal., — and they falter and fall back before 
 his effective fire. 
 
 Mr. Fitzhugh holds ground similar to that occupied by Aristotle, 
 who knew nothing in especial of Negro Slavery. Our Virginian's 
 territory is largely more extensive, however, than was that of the 
 encyclopedian Greek. The Ancient saw but an island-^ an 
 insular fact — while the Modern sees over the broad continent 
 of natm-e. 
 
 This author's objections to Free Trade are distinct and broad. 
 It stands in contravention of Nature's established laws. Let us 
 hear him speak for himself: — 
 
 " Free trade occasions a vast and useless, probably a very 
 noxious waste of capital and labour, in exchanging the produc- 
 tions of different and distant climes and regions. Furs and oils 
 are not needed at the South, and the fruits of the tropics are 
 tasteless and insipid at the North. It is probable, if the subject 
 were scientifically investigated, it would be found that the pro- 
 ductions of one clime when used in another are injurious and 
 deleterious." {Sociology, p. i8.) 
 
 However httle this dictum may conform to the theories of com- 
 merce, there is no denying the fact that this reference to the 
 laws of Nature — this deference to her suggestions and con- 
 veniences — is a growing fact; and is being made practical in 
 domestic economy, in Pathology, and in Zoology so far as it 
 relates to domestic animals. 
 
 It may be freely admitted that it is only a question of time ; 
 and that this principle is destined to be universally acknowledged, 
 and to control the coming creeds in poHtico-economical philo- 
 sophy. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 183 
 
 In Cannibals All, Mr. Fitzhugh pushes his inquiries to a 
 greater extreme upon the Slavery issue. ' He illustrates and 
 demonstrates further what he terms the cannibalism of all society- 
 based upon anti-slavery principles ; shows that slavery is based 
 upon np.tural law, and how; and, spurning the co-operation of 
 those who argue upon African inferiority, claims that Slavery has 
 no necessary relations to colour. 
 
 This, however, the Scripture argument had done before. 
 
 But all agree in the superiority of Negro Slavery. 
 
 Mr. Fitzhugh thus stands clearly one step in advance of the 
 front of the Southern line of battle in this great War of Slavery. 
 
 In this position our author's prominence is the more marked, 
 in that he reaches the climax of demonstrations favouring African 
 slavery, at a moment when the besom of Progress is just in the 
 process of sweeping African slavery from the world. 
 
 The fates appear mightier than Mr. Fitzhugh' s logic, or that 
 of the host of pro-slavery sociological writers, — mightier also than 
 the earnest and daring people who have bled so heroically in 
 this cause, having, as they had, the world against them. Future 
 times will keep these books as curious or monstrous things. 
 
 Mr. Fitzhugh is a resident, perhaps a native, of the city of 
 Richmond ; a lawyer by profession, retired from practice ; about 
 fifty years of age ; having a family. 
 
 During the war, he wrote frequently for DeBow's Commercial 
 Review, as he had done before that time ; though his contributions 
 were not confined to that periodical. He discussed freely the 
 questions of the day in the Riclimond daily papers. Since the 
 war, we find him still vigorously discussing* his favourite subjects 
 of State economy and sociology. In DeBow's Review he gives 
 us a tliinking article on the Excess of Population and Increase 
 of Crime; and numerous other articles exhibit him in his favour- 
 ite light, — original, earnest, logical, and independent. 
 
 In person he is about medium height and size; possibly a 
 shade below this ; of dark complexion ; a silent-lppking man, of 
 pleasant and impressive manner. 
 
1 84 LTVIN'G WRITERS OF TME SOUTJT. 
 
 HENRY LYNDEN FLASH. 
 
 Several years ago — it rnaybe ten — in some newspaper, pro- 
 ^bably the Home Journal, of New York, 1 chanced upon this little 
 poem, called Love and Wrong, under the authority of Lynden 
 ■ Eclair : — 
 
 . A scoffed-at prayer, the flit of a dress. 
 The glance of a frenzied eye, 
 A sullen splash, and the moon shone out. 
 And the stream went murmuring by. 
 
 And never again will I walk by the moon. 
 
 Through the oaks ^4 chestnuts Hgh ; 
 For I fear to see the flit of a dress. 
 
 And the glance of a frenzied eye. 
 
 And some may laugh and some may weep, 
 , But as for me, I pray j 
 For I know that a tale of love and wrong 
 ' ' Will be told on the Judgment -Day. 
 
 I was startled at the power of these three stanzas — at the 
 condensation — the m^ltum inparva — the thrilUng tact of telling 
 so much in so very few words. It is true, there is too much of 
 the melodramatic and spasmodic in the fiction of this Love and 
 Wrvng, but still there is power. Whoever has read the poem 
 will never forget it. 
 
 I felt tliat, whoever he was, I^ynden Eclair was a true poet. 
 The name was evidently a nom de plume, and I awaited anx- 
 iously the name of the author. 
 
 The next I saw of Lynden Eclair was in the Sunday Delta, of 
 New Orleans, during 1858, I believe, in a lyric called Who Can 
 Tell, dated Mobile, Alabama. That poem is also brief: — 
 
 She Jived a life of sin aiid shame. 
 Spumed by the fool, shunned by the good, — 
 
 A withered hope, a blasted name, 
 A blighted womanhood. v 
 
iJVING WRITEHS OF THE SOUTIT. 185 
 
 She died -vritbin a loajtlisome den, 
 
 Unwept-for to the grave was bome^ 
 While sleek-chfieked, pious hypocrites, 
 
 Sneered with a smile of scorn. 
 
 And s?.id, "This is the end of sin, 
 
 And Satan now has claimed his own," 
 Forgetting Christ, "He th3.t is pure 
 
 Let him first cast a stone." 
 
 " J"4se not, lest ye bef judged," he said. 
 And e'en the thief upon the cross. 
 Gave up his life in penitence, — 
 A ^iner by the loss. 
 
 And gentle Mercy pleads for all, • 1 
 
 And she perhaps may dwell 
 Up with the singing hdsts of heaven, — 
 
 Peace, bigot ! who can tell ? 
 
 This was SO full of passionate earnestness, of Spartan pith, of 
 dramatic life, and withal of catholic charity, that my interest in 
 tlie anonyme and the puzzle increased. ; 
 
 I knew of no, man in America who could approach the 
 peculiar verve of these l)T-ics, except Stoddard, and had reasons 
 for believing that it was not he. Aldrich might have conceived 
 and even written thern ; he could never have left them without 
 some evidence of polish and of his patient retouching, — could 
 never have left them in the Gieek simplicity in which they 
 here appear. 
 
 My mind at once turned to a transalantic star, just then rising 
 into view, from which alone, as I conceived, this peculiar light 
 could come. 
 
 My mind fixed upon Owen Meredith — Bulwer_/?/j — as the 
 one living poet who might be the author of these poemlets, of 
 such unique spirit and vigour, — of such concise, suggestive, and 
 yet easy and nonchalant expression. I had read Owen Mere- 
 dith's poems, from time to time, in the newspapers, of the day ; 
 and about that time his poems appeared in an American reprint 
 16* 
 
1 86 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of an English volume. This volume, in my view, placed Owen 
 Meredith high among contemporary poets, — ^second, if not first, 
 after Tennyson. 
 
 Imagine my surprise and pleasure, then, when a new poem 
 came unmistakably from the same brain, and with it the identity 
 of authorship, under the true name of Hcnty- Lynden Flash ; 
 and with it came, too, the information that the poet was not only 
 an American but a Southron. This new poem far surpassed 
 both the odiers, and assured the author a more ' distinct and 
 fixed elevation in the scale of poetic rank. It is called Wtiat 
 She Brought Me, and' needs no parade of its merits to give it 
 currency from heart to heart, all over our beauty-loving land. 
 I give it entire : — 
 
 This, faded flower that you see 
 
 Was given me, a year ago, 
 By one whose little dainty hand 
 
 Is whiter than the snow. 
 
 Her eyes are blue as violets, 
 
 And she's a blonde, and very fair. 
 And sunset-tints are not as brigl^ 
 
 As is her golden hair. 
 
 And there are roses in her cheeks 
 That come and go like living things ; 
 
 Her voice is softer than the brook's 
 That flows from hidden springs. 
 
 She gave it me with downcast eyes, 
 
 And rosy flushes of the cheek, ' 
 
 That told of tender thoughts h^r, tongue 
 Had never learned to speali. 
 
 The fitting words had just been said, 
 
 Arid she was mine as long as life ; 
 I gently laid the flower aside, 
 
 And kissed my blusliing wife. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 187 
 
 She took it up, with earnest look. 
 And said,, "Ob, prize the flower," — 
 
 And tender tears were in her eyes, — 
 "It is my only dower." 
 
 I 
 
 She brought me Faith, and Hope, and Truth, 
 She brought me gentle thoughts arid love, 
 
 A soul as pure as those that float 
 Around the throne above. 
 
 But earthly things she nothing had. 
 
 Except this faded flower you see; 
 And though 'tis worthless in your eyes, 
 
 'Tis vCTy dear to me. 
 
 I sincerely pity the man who does not find this an exquisite 
 poem. 
 
 If a more exquisite lyric — exquisite in that >its theme is the 
 most essentially poetic of all themes, in its felicitous phraseology, 
 its graceful and native pathos, its delicacy, and its dramatic 
 simplicity, — rif a more exquisite lyric, I say, has been written in 
 America, I have not seen it. It is neither striking in the sen- 
 sational way, nor markedly original, — but, enough of both to 
 give it high rank as a natural lyric. 
 
 In i860 Mr. Flash published his poems in a small volume 
 — just the time when tiie first mutterings of the cloud of war 
 were heard, and in the thunder-storm that h^s succeeded, the 
 book has been comparatively forgotten, — as have all things 
 else than blood, horrors, and death. 
 
 The volume contains sixty^one poems, all lyrical ; and is, I 
 have not the least' hesitation in saying, the best first-volume of 
 poems ever published in America. I wish to vindicate my 
 opinion in the safest way — by examples. With this view, I 
 quote another poem in the vein of What She Brought Me, and 
 well-nigh its equal iii merit. It is called The J^faid J Love : — 
 
i88 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 
 
 The maid I love has violet eyes. 
 
 And rose-leaf lips of rsd,. 
 She wears the moonshine round her neck. 
 
 The sunshiiie round her head; 
 And she Is rich in every grace, 
 
 And poor in every guile. 
 And crowned kingp might envy me 
 
 The. splendour of her smile. 
 
 She walks the earth with such a grace, 
 
 The lilies turn to look. 
 And waves rise up to catch a glance. 
 
 And stir the quiet brook ; 
 Nor ever- will they rest again. 
 
 But chatter as they flow. 
 And babble of her crimson lips, 
 
 And of her breast of snow. 
 
 And e'en the leaves upon the trees 
 
 Are whispering talp of her. 
 And tattle till they grow so warm 
 
 That, in tie general stir, 
 They twist them from the inOther-branch, 
 
 And through the: air they fly. 
 Till, fainting with the love they feel, - 
 
 They flutter down and die. 
 
 And what is stranger still than all 
 
 The wonders of her grace. 
 Her mind's the only thing to match 
 
 The glories of her face. 
 Oh ! she is nature's paragon; — 
 
 All innocent of art ; 
 And she has promised me her hand. 
 
 And given me her heart. 
 
 And when the spring again shall flush 
 Our glorious Southern bowers, 
 
 My love will wear a bridal veil, — 
 A wreath of orange flowers j 
 
LIVING WRITERS OJP TME SOUTH. 189 
 
 And so 1 care not if the sun 
 
 Should .founder in the sea. 
 For, oh, the heaven of her love 
 
 Is light enough for me. 
 
 I . . . . / 
 
 Here we have inventidh and imaginatibft, both legitimately 
 
 and happily exercised ; but ideality is the halo that makes the 
 poem glow with divine light. Exquisite is the adjective tliat 
 tells how dainty and how true it is — ^ to the heart that has yielded 
 itself to the bewildering witchery that is the thesis of the poem. 
 The Duke of the Old Regime has been very much and very 
 justly admired, though it is wholly unlike that which we have 
 just read. In it we hjive something decidedly French — some- 
 thing of mtcJiancete and of dash, — irregular, frantic, exclama- 
 tionary, but withal telling and thrilling. Instead of quoting 
 the Duke, however, I prefer to give At the Theatre, — a poem 
 in a kindred vein, less spasmodic, but equally suggestive : — 
 
 I entered the lobby, dreaming a dream, 
 
 As Marco, cruel and cold, 
 Pressed her snowy hand on the marble heart 
 
 That had just been bought and sold; 
 But my spirit was off on a journey then, 
 
 To the happy days of old. 
 
 Step by step did it glowly go, 
 
 Down the silent yesterdajrs. 
 Till it came to a year that was bright with love 
 
 And all the months were Mays, 
 And it met a spirit purer far . 
 
 Than those you see in plays. 
 
 The house was crowded then as now. 
 
 And some were pale with fear 
 As they watched the play, and in many an ^e 
 
 Was a tender, pitying teju'. 
 As Cordelia, dead in her stainless robes. 
 
 Was borne in: the. arms of Lear. 
 
19° LIVING WRITERS OF TME SOUTHS. 
 
 I turned away from the saddening sight, 
 
 And staggered with surprise. 
 As I met the wonderful light that flowed 
 
 From Maud's immaculate eyes ; 
 Our hearts met then — they will meet again 
 
 In the bowers of Paradise. 
 
 Twelve months of May, and then, alas ! 
 
 The blast came bleak and chill ! 
 It killed the rose upon her cheek. 
 
 The lily pleaded still; 
 In vain the prayer — she sleeps beneath 
 
 The willow on the hiU. 
 
 And while the actors play their parts, 
 
 My soul takes up its woe. 
 And with its burden travels back 
 
 To the buried long ago, — 
 To the happy dreamland of my life, 
 
 Where roses always blow. 
 
 And now, while others watch the play, 
 
 I visit my spirit wife, 
 ,Aad pray that the. Tragedy may end. 
 
 With its pitiless pain and stri^ — 
 That my darling and I may meet again 
 
 In everlasting life. 
 
 Though this partakes to some extent of the spasmodic school 
 of poetry, yet they are few who will not recognize in it a power — 
 a proof of genius— hardly to be surpassed in this vein anywhere, 
 and to be found equalled perhaps only in the poems of Owen 
 Meredith, in English, and in the Chansons HichaHtiees of Gustave 
 Nadaud, in French. 
 
 Mr. Flash was born about 1836 or 1837, in the West Indies, 
 and is of English descent. 
 
 He is of the celebrated Wilberforce family, — the present Ed- 
 ward Wilberforce being a near relative. He was awhile, I believe, 
 a student of Georgetown (D. C.) College, and received the after 
 portion of his education somewhere in Kentucky. It was at an 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 191 
 
 early age that he removed to the Uiiited States, first residing in 
 New Orleans, and later fixing in Mobile. In 1857 he spent 
 the year in Europe, principally at Florence. Wrote verses at 
 fifteen. Published his first volume, as already stated, in i860 ; 
 and in the same year went into the western^produce wholesale 
 business, in Galveston, Texas. The war soon interrupted him 
 in this useftil and practical, but vastly unpoetical, pursuit ; and 
 he entered with spirit upon the theatre of war. He served in 
 the Western Army ; and being promoted to the rank of captain, 
 he served upon the staffs of Generals Hardee and Wlieeler, the 
 latter being in the cavalry branch of the service. Late in the 
 war we find him editing The Daify Confederate, in Macon, Georgia. 
 Since i860 he has published in the newspapers some of his 
 most popular poems. Among these are his tributes to Stonewall 
 Jackson and Zollikoffer. His Mocking-Bird is a wierd, wild 
 thing ; less, to the theme proper, it must be confessed, than are 
 the poems of some who have essayed the same subject before 
 hun, — Rodman Drake, Albert Pike, Judge Meek, Miss Gould, 
 F. Crosby, St. Leger \j. Carter, Charles W. Hubner, and Richard 
 Henry Wilde, — but Flash has produced, nevertheless, a teUing 
 and characteristic poem. The theme is the memory of a lost 
 love under the directing influence of tlie "mock-bird's capricious 
 lay." A stanza or two will illustrate the direction : — 
 
 He blesses my ear with the dove-like tones 
 
 I loved in the days gone by, 
 When all the sorrow my heart could hold 
 
 Came forth in a single sigh. 
 
 t .. . . ■ 
 
 And I feel the touch of the hand I love. 
 
 The breath on my happy cheek, — 
 The bird stops' short, and quirks him round 
 
 And giveth a piercing shriek 
 
 That teEs a tale of a foupdered ship 
 
 And all on board gone down, 
 Leaving one lover bearing a cross. 
 
 The other wearing a crown. 
 
192 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Poe's iterating Raven did not spring a mine of agonized 
 memory with his " Nevermore," more startlingly than does this 
 bird that quirks him round with a piercing shriek. And the art 
 here is consunamate. No one who reads the second of the above 
 stanzas could doubt what bird was meant. This picturing power 
 is true ai't. 
 
 Mr. Flash has written under several noms de plume, among 
 which are Harold, Ding Dong, Lynden Eclair (Eclair — a fantas- 
 tic translation of his name into French), and latterly, Harry 
 Flash. This cause has prevented his being as widely known as 
 he would have been, writing under his own name. 
 
 He writes with great ease, with great rapidity when in the vein ; 
 but does not elaborate or finish his poems. This is a grave 
 misfortune. Witiiout work — real earnest work — even Mr. 
 Flash's fine genius will be unavailing towards establishing a 
 great name. He has the genius. Let him work. The reward 
 is sure. Without work, there is not the remotest chance for an 
 enduring reputation. 
 
 One writer says of his faciliity in writing : " He has never 
 written anything which was not finished at a single sitting, and 
 has never been more than two hours writing anything he has 
 ever published." 
 
 This statement is on the verge of the incredible. Yet it is 
 gravely stated, and the authority seems competent. It speaks 
 volumes for the genius of our poet. That genius is quick and 
 concentrated. 
 
 In illustration of his wonderful improvisatorial powers, I give 
 the following anecdote, which I have upon the very best au- 
 thority. He wrote the poem JPo^k, which is full of fire and 
 genius, at the ipstance of his foreman, while he was editor of The 
 Daily Confederate, in 1864, without having bestowed upon it a 
 moment of thought. The foreman lacked about six or seven 
 inches ©f having enough matter to fill the outside form. He 
 went to Mr. Flash for copy. 
 
 "What kind do you need?" 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 193 
 
 "There is no poetry in to-day, sir; and you might give us a 
 short piece. Besides, poetry can be set up quicker ; and you 
 would better write it yourself, sir, because the hands, late as it is 
 now, like leaded copy." 
 
 "What shall it be about?" , 
 
 " You have written about ZoUikoflfer, and about Jackson, and 
 you might as well write about General Polk, who was killed the 
 other day." 
 
 Thereupon Mr. Flash set to work, and in five minutes the 
 poem was in the hands of tlie compositor, and in twenty minutes 
 was being printed. 
 
 His power of antithesis is unequalled in the South. Rapid 
 condensation, quick suggestion, and a masterly choice of ex- 
 pressive words, mark all he has written. In these qualities 
 he stands nearer to Owen Meredith than does any other living 
 poet, and nearer than he does to any other living poet. 
 
 The readiness of utterance of which I have spoken, has perhaps 
 misled him in his estimate of the nature of inspiration and 
 the function of poetic art. He may forget that no amount or 
 degree of the former can replace the latter. As long as gram- 
 mars and rhetorics are in use, — as long, that is to say, as 
 embodiment in language is an art, proper, — - so long will versifi- 
 cation be an art worthy the culture of the finest genius. Without 
 many years of patient study in this line, Tennyson could not 
 now stand at the head of hving poets. To art, Poe, the rarest 
 poetic genius that America has the honour > to claim, owes his 
 position. 
 
 I throw out these silggestions for the reflection of those who 
 may have acquired a reverence for inspiration, so called, and a 
 contempt for the art of versification, just as rationally may one 
 have a contempt for architecture, and yet expect to have fine 
 buildings. 
 
 It is high time that such stupidity be banished to Kamt- 
 chatka or the Feegee Islands, or to some other Suitable locality. 
 
 Oiir poet is a trifle below medium height — maybe five feet 
 17 
 
194 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 nine — and stands erect. Has black hair ; black, keen, piercing 
 eyes, a strongly marked Roman nose ; a prominent and forcible 
 chin ; and an expressive mouth. 
 
 I,AMAR FONTAINE. 
 
 During the war I wrote a sketch of Lamar Fontaine, which 
 was publisued in a Southern periodical, in January, 1866. In 
 that sketch I assumed that he was the author of a poem then 
 known by the title of All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night, 
 because he had claimed it as his ; and the claim had not at that 
 time been much discussed. One of my leading points was to 
 elicit a discussion and settlement of the disputed authorship, the 
 poem having been claimed by six aspiring poets, some North 
 and some South. 
 
 The question has been " settled " more than once ; and yet I 
 have not seen, side by side, some of the most telling points which 
 I take occasion to present. 
 
 Upon the poem itself my sketch of Lamar Fontaine contains 
 the following comment : — 
 
 " One important point towards the poem's rapid success was its timeliness. 
 Its scene is the edge of battle. It is tributive to the Unknown Dead, as 
 worthy an altar as was the Unlmown God of the Athenians ; and this feeling 
 was then becoming well defined throughout our country, and is, at all times, 
 essentially poetic. The incidents of the poem are romantic in the extreme, 
 while its essential fact is in a high degree both tragic and heroic. 
 
 "Byron's Dying Gladiator (Childe Harold, Canto IV. cxl.) is not supe- 
 rior in touching incidents to our Dying Picket. The rude hut by the Danube, 
 the young barbarians all at play, and the Dacian mother, have less of pathos 
 in them than have our Picket's cot upon the mountain, the two on the low 
 trundle-bed, and Mary, for whom a prayer had just gone up from a brave 
 and suffering heart, — less of pathos, at least, to one who has trod the path 
 of the picket, shared like dangers and exposures, and breathed like prayers 
 for some Mary whom human probability left him no hope of seeing again in 
 life. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 195 
 
 " The poem was thus opportune ; and it went to the hearts of our people. 
 
 "There are several points of cai-elessness — crudities here and there — in 
 the structure of the verse, which detract from the poem as a work of art. 
 The system is anapestic, and, irf the main, regular. There are instances of 
 the happy effect of UTegularity, however, that are very striking ; as in this 
 verse, — 
 
 ' His musket falls slack — his face dark and grim,' — 
 
 where the omission of a syllable (after slack) g^ves place for a pause of one 
 syllable's time that is very effective. It is a fine touch of the happiest art. 
 In the tenth stanza, the catastrophe in ' Ha ! Mary, good-by ! ' is very fine. 
 Its abruptness and its volume-in-a-word style are startling and suggestive. 
 There is no cumber of words ; but the bloody deed is dashed in all its ghast- 
 liness instantly at our feet. We hear the ebbing and splashing of his life- 
 blood. We feel the warm current spirting upon our feet. 
 " This is genuine tra^c power. 
 " This is genuine tragic effect. 
 
 " The last stanza is the best in the poem ; and the last verse is the best in 
 the stanza. It is a complete poem in one single verse. 
 
 " The long silence, during which nothing has fallen from his lips, suggests 
 the inquiry if the fountain of the poet's inspiration is sealed again. 
 
 " If this one poem is all that we are to expect, it will take its place among 
 the mono-poems of literature, along with Woodworth's Old Oaken Bucket, 
 Wilde's Summer Rose, Thomas's Absence, Key's Star-Spangled Banner, 
 Hopkinson's Hail Columbia, Greene's Old Grimes, Pmckney's Health, 
 Frisbie's Castles in the Air, Parsons' Bust of Dante, Palmer's Ode to 
 Light, Ware's Ursa Major, and Norton's Scene after a Summer S/wwer, 
 and, we may as well add, Wolfe's Burial of Sir yohn Moore, and Rouget 
 de Lisle's Marseillaise. 
 
 "All Quiet Along ike Potomac To-night stands among the fine poems 
 that the war of secession has produced. I do not refer here to the inflated rant 
 called war -songs that hold place in the comers of newspapers — the bombast 
 and fustian done into rhyme by bellicose youths, who, from their safe posi- 
 tions out of the field, clamoured vociferously for black flagp ; who cried with 
 a loud voice to our people of all ages, sizes, and conditions, to buckle on 
 armour, to rush from the mountains and from the valleys, to bring spears, 
 pitchforks, and even bare bodkins, everybody, from everywhere, with every- 
 thing, to come, nor to stand upon the order of their coming, but come at 
 once, and press on to the front, — who cried thus, but never pressed on to 
 the front themselves. I do not refer to that kind of war-songs. But I 
 mean to say, that All Quiet Along tfie-Fotomac To-night stands with such 
 
196 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOVTM. 
 
 poems as Thompson's Battle Rainbow^ or his Stuart ; Ransiall's John 
 Pelham, or his Fort Pillow ; Ticloior's Knights of tJke Valley, Flash's 
 Stonewall yackson, or his Zollikoffer; and a few others. 
 
 " Its popularity may wane with time ; hufit will be appreciated as a true 
 poem as long as wars and the memories of wars continue — as Ipng as hostile 
 hosts send sorrow over civilized coimtries — as long as bloody deaths in dis- 
 tant lands break loving hearts at home." 
 
 Last year — 1868 — I wrote to Major Fontaine for such tes- 
 timony upon the contested authorship as he might feel free to 
 give me for pubhcation ; also, asking him for a genuine copy of 
 the poem. 
 
 In his reply, dated The Lodge, Bastrop County, Texas, May 
 24, 1868, Major Fontaine writes: — 
 
 " Now the poem in question was written by me while our army lay at 
 Fairfax Court-House; or rather, the greater portion, in aiid around that 
 place. On the 2d day of Augtvst, 1861, I first read it to a few of my mess- 
 mates, in Company I, 2d Virginia Cavalry. My captain's name was John 
 D. Alexander, of Campbell Coimty, Vji. John Moon, P. Graham, Early, 
 W. W. Williamson, and one or two privates from Companies C and G, 
 whose names I have forgotten, were also present. During the month of 
 August I gave away many manuscript copies to soldiers, and some few to 
 ladies in and about Leesburg, Loudon County, Va. In fact, I think that 
 most of the men belonging to the 2d Virginia, then commanded by Colonel 
 Radford, were aware of the fact that I was the author of it. 
 
 "I never saw the piece in print until just before the battle of Leesburg 
 [Monday, 21st October, 1861. — J. W. D.], and then it was in a Northern 
 paper, with the notice that it had been found on the dead body of a picket. 
 
 "These are the facts and dates, Mr. Davidson. I wish that I could 
 remember names more accurately, so as to give you a wider scope, firom 
 whence you could gain more information regarding the early history of the 
 poem in question ; but when I attempt to peer through the dim, shadowy veil, 
 that hides the past seven years, and read the names engiaven upon memory's 
 tablet, I find the lines too indistinctly traced to be legible at this distant date. 
 Mr. Graham, one of the gentlemen referred to, was a relative of Captain 
 Alexander. Messrs. Moon and Early were cousins. Mr. Williamson was our 
 orderly-sergeant. I believe they all reside near Campbell Court-House, 
 Va., and I refer you to any of these gentlemen. . . . 
 
 " I was born on the wild prairies of this State, near Independence, Wash- 
 
LIVIN'G WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 197 
 
 ington County. The place is now called Gay Hill. In 1840 my father 
 moved to Austin, and was the private secretary of General Lamar, after 
 whom I was named. In 1841 or 1842 we moved to Mississippi, and then 
 again to Texas. On our return, I soon learned aU the pastimes, etc., prac- 
 ticed by the wild frontier boys ; and my delight was to slip away from home 
 and live with the Indians. Among these latter I learned to hunt, and my 
 fondness for it has never ceased." 
 
 [Here follows a record of Major Fontaine's war experience; which is 
 highly interesting, but space will not permit its being given here. — j. w. D.] 
 
 " Since that time I have been endeavouring to eke out a living as a peda- 
 gogue, with a helpless wife and child dependent upon my daily labours, with 
 poor pay, and a cripple too, for I received eleven wounds during the war, 
 and have lost my right limb. Yes, trying to eke out an existence ; and am 
 a homeless wanderer around my own home, and an exile in my own native 
 dime, — almost in sight of , the veiy spot where I first beheld the light of 
 day. ... I have never yet tasted a drop of any kind of strong drink ; 
 and to that fact, more than any other, do I attribute my remarkable re- 
 coveries from serious wounds ; and nightly I thank the Great I Am for 
 having spared me through so many dangers, and ask daily for a pure and 
 meek hear| tbfit I may bear my present lot as a true Christian and soldier of 
 Christ should. 
 
 " My friends have often urged me to collect my poems, and publish them; 
 and at one time I had several hundred pages prepared, but they were de- 
 stroyed by those who have made such a total virreck of our once sweet sunny 
 land, and I have never had the time or the means to collect them since ; and 
 were you to see rny daily routine of duties, you would not wonder at my not 
 writing. 
 
 " I hope the controversy between myself and others in regard to AU Quiet 
 Along the Potomac To-night will soon be forever settled. I wrote it, and 
 the world knows it ; and they may howl over it, and give it to as many 
 authors as they please. I wrote it, and I am a Southern man, and am proud 
 of the title ; and am glad that my children will know that the South was the 
 birthplace of their fathers, from their generation back to the seventh. Silver 
 and gold I can not give them, but the pure blood of their Huguenot an- 
 cestry I have transmitted, pure and untarnished, into their veins. 
 
 " Enclosed I will send you a copy of the original poem, AU Quiet Along 
 the Potomac To-night, and one other piece. I would send you more, but 
 they are non-come-at-able just now.'' 
 17* 
 
198 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The copy of the poem mentioned as enclosed is as follows : 
 
 \From the Original Copy.\ 
 
 ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT. 
 
 All quiet along the Potomac, they say. 
 
 Except here and there a stray picket 
 Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro. 
 
 By a rifleman hid in the thicket. 
 'Tis nothing, a private or two now and then. 
 
 Will not count in the news of the battle. 
 Not an officer lost, only one of the men 
 
 Moaning out all alone the death-rattle. 
 
 All quiet along the Potomac to-night. 
 
 Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming ; 
 Their tents in the rays of the clear autunm moon 
 
 Or in the light of their camp-fires gleaming ; 
 A tremulous sigh, as a gentle night wind. 
 
 Through the forest -leaves softly is creeping. 
 While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes. 
 
 Keep guard o'er the army while sleeping. 
 
 in. 
 
 There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread. 
 
 As he tramps from the rock to the foimtain. 
 And thinks of the two on the low trundle-bed. 
 
 Far away in the cot on the mountain. 
 His musket falls slack, and his face dark and grim. 
 
 Grows gentle with memories tender. 
 As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep ; 
 
 For thejr mother, — may heaven defend her ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 The moon seems to shine as brightly as then, — 
 That night when the love yet unspoken 
 
 Leaped up to his lips, and when low-murmured vows 
 Were pledged to be ever unbroken. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 199 
 
 Then drawing his sleeve roughly over liis eyes, 
 
 He dashes off tears that are welling, 
 And gathers his gun close up to its place. 
 
 As if to keep down the heart-swelling. 
 
 He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree ; 
 
 The footsteps are lagging and weary; 
 Yet onward they go, through the broad belt of light. 
 
 Toward the shade of the forest so dreary. 
 Hark ! was it the night-wind rustled the leaves? 
 
 Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing? 
 It looked like a rifle ! "Ha ! Mary, good-by." 
 
 And the life-blood is ebbing and splashing. 
 
 VI. 
 All quiet along the Potomac to-night. 
 No sound save the rush of the river ; 
 Whilst soft falls the dew on the face of the dead, - 
 The picket's off diity, forever ! 
 Near Senneca Island Falls, August 21, 1861. 
 
 Pursuant to Major Fontaine's information, I addressed letters 
 of inquiry to the parties referred to ; and received answers from 
 Captain Alexander and Mr. W. W. Williamson. 
 
 Captain John D. Alexander's letter, in reply, is dated Camp- 
 bell Clerk's Office, Campbell Court-House, Virginia, June 12, 
 1868, and says: — 
 
 » 
 "Yours of the 5th inst., is just to hand in regard to the authorship oi All 
 
 Quiet Along the Potomac To-night. The first I heard of it was in the winter 
 or fall of 1861, while I was in command of the cavalry stationed at Lees- 
 burg. Mr. Fontaine was then a member of my company, and I understood 
 he was the author of it. All his mess say he certainly was the author, and 
 of which I have no doubt. 
 
 "Messrs. Pugh, Magan, Wosedale, Moosman, and others with whom I 
 have conversed, all agree that he is the author. 
 
 " I have been written to before, by gthers parties, on the subject." 
 
200 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Mr. Williamson's letter is dated Warrenton, F'auquier County, 
 Virginia, July i, 1868; and says: — 
 
 " I remember to have heard Mr. Fontaine read articles which he claimed 
 to have written, but have no recollection of any particular piece. This, I 
 think, was while our army was encamped about Leesburg, in the fall of 
 1861." 
 
 I have also on hand two other poems received from Major 
 Fontaine, In Memoriam and Only a Soldier, but both are in- 
 finitely inferior to All Quiet, and their insertion could not 
 strengthen his claim to the latter. 
 
 I had some reasons for knowing tliat Mr. Chandler Harris, of 
 Georgia, had taken an interest in this question ; and I wrote 
 him, asking the result of his inquiries. In his reply, dated For- 
 syth, Georgia, June 8, 1868, Mr. Harris says ; — 
 
 " After a careful and impartial investigation of all the fact« in my reach, 
 I have come to the conclusion that Mrs. Beers, and not Mr. Fontaine, wrote 
 the poem in question. 
 
 "In your sketch of I^mar Fontaine, published in January, 1866, I 
 distinctly remember that you do not, except upon the strengtli of bis^ own 
 testimony, claim the poem for liim; but, with evident design, you avoid 
 saying that he wrote it. 
 
 ' ' My reasons for believing that Mr. Fontaine is not the author of All 
 Quiet, are several. 
 
 " I. The poem appeared in Harper's Weekly for November 30, 1 861, as 
 The Picket- Guard, over the initials of Mrs. Ethel Beers, of New York. 
 
 "2. It did not make its appearance in any Southern paper until about 
 April or May, in 1862. 
 
 "3. It was publisbed as having been found in the pocket of a dead soldier, 
 on the battle-field. It is more than probable that the dead soldier was a 
 Federal, and that the poem had been clipped from Harper. 
 
 "4. I have compared the poem in Harper, with the same as it first ap- 
 peared iii the Southern papers, and find the punctuation to be precisely the 
 same. 
 
 " 5. Mr. Fontaine, so far as I have seen, has given elsewhere no evidence 
 of the powers displayed in that poem. I, however, remember noticing in the 
 Charleston Courier, in 1863 or 1864, a 'Parodie' (as Mr. L. F. had it) on 
 Mrs. Norton's Bingen on the Rhine, which was positively the poorest affair 
 
LIVING WRITE-RS OF TH^ SOUTH. zoi 
 
 I ever saw. Mr. Fontaine had just come out of a Federal prison, and some 
 irresponsible editor, in Speaking of tliis 'parodie,' remarked that the poet's 
 Pegasus had probably worn his wmgs out against the walls of his Northern 
 dungeon. . . . 
 
 "You probably know me well enough to acquit me, in this instance at 
 least, of the charge of prejudice. I am jealous of Southern literature, and 
 if I have any partiality in the matter at all, it is in favour of Major Lamar 
 Fontaine. I should like to claim this poem for that gentleman — I should 
 be glad to^daim it as a specimen of Southern literature; but the facts in 
 the case do ^ot warrant ijt," 
 
 I may add, that I have a copy of Harper's Weekly of Novem- 
 ber 30, 1 86 1, containing the poem in question, under the title 
 of The Picket-Guard, signed " E. B." 
 
 Dr. A. H. Guernsey, editor of Harper's Magazine, wrote to 
 Mr. Harris a letter, dated Franklin Sqicare, N'ew York, March 
 22, 1868,' in which he says : — 
 
 " The facts are just these : The poem bearing the title The Picket-Guard, 
 appeared in Harper's Weekly for November 30, 1861. I send you a Copy 
 of the paper of that date, which will establish this fact. It was furnished by 
 Mrs. Ethel Beers, a lady whom I think incapable of palming off as her own 
 any production of another. 
 
 "Several persons have at various times claimed the authorship of the 
 poem. Among these I have before heard the name of Mr. Fontaine. 
 Beyond this, I know nothing of that gentleman. If he can show tl)e publi- 
 cation of the poem at an earlier date than November, 186 1, he malces out a 
 feir case against Mrs. Beers. If he can not show this, but still claims to be the 
 author, those who know him will place such value upon his assertion as their 
 knowledge of his character warrants. Of this character I know nothing, 
 — good, bad, or indifferent. 
 
 " You are quite at liberty to make any use you please of this note." 
 
 I give the conflicting testimony for what it is worth. 
 
 Who wrote All Quiet Ahng the Potomac To-night f 
 
 Who wrote The Picket-Guard f 
 
 Is the poem Northern ? 
 
 Or Southern ? 
 
 Written by a woman ? 
 
 Or a man ? 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 HENRY S. rOOTE. 
 
 Mr. FooTE appears as the author of two books : — 
 
 1. Texas and the Texans ; or the Advance of the Anglo- 
 Americans to the Southwest. This is a duodecimo in two 
 volumes, first published in 1841, and republished in 1852. 
 
 2. War of the Rebellion : or Scylla and Cfiarybdis, — consist- 
 ing of observations upon the causes, course, and consequencefs 
 of the late civil war in the United States. The epigraph of this 
 work — pubhshedby the Harpers, in 1866 — is a pithy extract 
 from Virgil : — 
 
 " Et pater Anchises: Nimirum haec ilia Charybdis;^ 
 Hos Helenus scopulos, haec saxa horrenda, canebat. 
 Eripite, O sociil pariterqtie insurgite remis." 
 
 Whether the author conceives himself to personate Pater 
 Anchises, or Helenus, or one of the socii, is not very apparent. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY FOOTE, D.D. 
 
 The Reverend Doctor Foote appears as the author of two 
 works, namely : — 
 
 1. Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, 
 Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of her early Settlers, 
 an octavo, appeared in New York in 1846, from the press of 
 Robert Carter. It was an 8vo. of 557 pages. 
 
 2. Sketthes of Virginia, Historical and Biographicai, an 8vo. 
 of 568 pages, was published in 1850, by Morris, Richmond. 
 A second series, containing 596 pages, appeared in Philadelphia 
 in 1855. 
 
 Dr. Foote is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Romney, 
 Virginia. He is an old man, and twenty or thirty years ago 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 203 
 
 was, I am informed, resident in North Carolina. He is a vene- 
 rable and somewhat eccentric man. Two additional volumes 
 of manuscript are on hand, and will doubtless be given to the 
 public in a few years. 
 
 The titles of Dr. Foote's works convey a very correct idea of 
 their contents, and the information embraced is extensive and 
 curious. 
 
 MRS. SALLY ROCHESTER FORD. 
 
 Mrs. Ford — nee Rochester — is a native of Kentucky, and 
 was born at Rochester Springs, in Boyle County, of that state, in 
 1828. 
 
 In both her personal and literary character, Mrs. Ford is emi- 
 nently religious and preeminently Baptist. 
 
 In 1848 she became the wife of the Rev. S. H. Ford, a 
 Baptist preacher, of Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Ford, shortly 
 after their marriage, became proprietor of The Christian Reposi- 
 tory, a religious monthly, and Mrs. Ford contributed largely to 
 it. In it she commenced a serial story — Grace Truman — that 
 made great reputation for the magazine, and no less for the 
 author. It appeared in that serial way in 1855 and 1856 ; and 
 was envolumed the following year. 
 
 Mrs. Ford's works are these : — 
 
 I. Grace Truman, or Love and Principle. Published by Shel- 
 Tion & Co., New Yoric, in 1857, and had a decided success. 
 It was religious, denominational, controversial, and therefore 
 very popular within a limited circle. A critic says of it : " As a 
 lucid and forcible presentation of distinctive tenets, it has, and 
 must ever hold, an important plate in religious literature." The 
 distinctive tenets referred to are those of the Baptists. The sales 
 of the book reached thirty tliousand in three years. 
 2. Mary Bwnyan, the Dreamer's Blind Daughter ; a Tale of 
 
204 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Religious Persecution, — appeared in i860. Mrs. Freeman says 
 of this book that the author " traces, with graphic power, the 
 persecution and intolerence by which the autlior of Ftlgrim'f 
 Progress was prepared for his immortal work." 
 
 3. Romance of Freemasonry. 
 
 4. Raids and Romance of Morgan and his Men, appeared in 
 1864, while the fame of the great guerilla was fresh, and about 
 the time of — but I believe just before — his death. It was in 
 May or June, I think, tliat General Rosecrans, of the Department 
 of the West, issued orders forbidding the circulation and sale 
 of this book in the Northern Army, then occupying Tennessee. 
 
 WILLIAM S. FOREST. 
 
 The work upon the strength of which I introduce this writer 
 is : — ,^ : 
 
 Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk and Vicinity, 
 including Portsmouth, and the Adjacent Counties, during a period 
 of Two Hundred Years ; also Sketches of Williamsburg, Hamp- 
 ton, Suffolk, Smithfield, and other Places, with Descriptions of some 
 of the principal Objects of Interest in Eastern Virginia, This 
 volume, of which the title takes one's breath away, was issued by 
 a Philadelphia publishing-house in 1853. The character, scope, 
 and importance of tlie work appear in the following extract from 
 a notice of that day : "Local chronicles and collections, like the 
 one before us, are the best sources of authentic history. They 
 provide the details which the historian condejises into symme- 
 trical narrative, and which he weighs separately, and groups to- 
 gether with judicial circumspection. They are, accordingly, in 
 a very high degree valuable to the student. They constitute, 
 apart from this, a very interesting study for those ijvho like to 
 dwell upon the birth and growtli of places, whose small begin- 
 
LIVING WB ITERS OF THE SOUTH. 205 
 
 nings are particularly grateful, as remembrances, when one beholds 
 a great city, with its towers and its temples, spreading and stretch- 
 ing away on every hand, in search of continued resources for life, 
 and in proof of still advancing prosperity. Norfolk, in our 
 American chronology, may be considered an old city. It is the 
 fault of its own people that it has not become a more imposing 
 one. Its natural advantages are rivalled by few. Its connec- 
 tion with the sea is immediate. Its access is easy. Its harbour 
 is magnificent. It occupies a central position between North 
 and South, on the Atlantic, and" might have drawn boundless 
 tribute from both sections. It has slept above its treasures. 
 But the sleep, we are told, is broken, and this volume shows us 
 that her citizens are bestiiring themselves. Mr. Forest has done 
 his work witii industry and a praiseworthy patriotism. His book 
 is full of interesting details, showing the gradual progress of the 
 city and surrounding country, from infancy to strength and 
 power. In this progress, he gives us many curious and instruc- 
 tive narratives. He does not confine himself to the physical 
 history of the region, but includes the personal and intellectual in 
 his researches. We have, accordingly, a sketch pf the literature 
 of Norfolk in these pages, and brief biographies of its great 
 men. The volume is a valuable contribution to our historical 
 annals, which will make its way into our libraries. It deserves 
 to do so." 
 
 MRS. L. VIRGINIA FRENCH. 
 
 The nom de plume of Mrs. French's maiden days was LIncon- 
 7iue; and her biograpTiy-skfetchers have most studiously avoided 
 telling us what was that ma,iden name. 
 
 She was bom on the eastern shore of Virginia. Left an 
 orphan at an early age, she was sent to her maternal grand- 
 mother's, in. Washington, Pennsylvania, to be educated. 
 18 
 
2o6 LIVING WRITERS OF TI£E SOUTH. 
 
 In 1848 she had finished her education, and returned to her 
 father's home in Virginia; but during the same year she went to 
 Memphis, Tennessee, as a teacher, and taught with success for 
 several years. 
 
 In 1852 she became associate editor of the Southern Ladie^ 
 Book, published in New Orleans. 
 
 In 1853 she was married to Mr. John H. French, of McMinn- 
 ville, Tennessee. The very romantic circumstances leading to 
 and attending this marriage are to be found detailed in the maga- 
 zine biographies of our author. 
 
 She has written : — 
 
 1. Wind-Whispers. Published in 1856. This is a volume of 
 poems, in the author's younger style, — inartistic, irregularly 
 musical, gushy, and earnest. A lady critic, speaking of the 
 poetry of this volume, has happily said : "We sit down to analyze 
 it, and find ourself floating away on a tide of rippling rhyme — 
 forgetful of all but the delicious motion, and the silvery tintina- 
 bulation." 
 
 2. Legends of the South. These legends are in verse, and 
 some of them are said to be finely imaginative and graphic. , 
 
 3. Jztalilxo, the Lady of Tala, — a tragedy in five acts, of which 
 the scene is in Mexico ; the time, before the Spanish discovery ; 
 the characters, the mysterious Tezcucons. The critics Tirithose 
 disagreeable people — say that some passages in this drama 
 resemble things in Ion and in The Lady of Lyons. But then the 
 same critic who said that spiteful thing quoted the following gem, 
 which is equal to some of the finest things in either of the great 
 dramas mentioned. The heroine with the unpronouncable 
 name has just said "I wish," and then hesitated, when her prince- 
 lover says : — 
 
 Thy wish ? Oh tell me, love, 
 Hadst thou thy dearest wish, what would it be? 
 A throne, an empire, nations at thy feet, 
 Gold like the sands upon the beaten shore, 
 Honoui-, or Fame to sound thy gentle name 
 Down ages yet to come, — which should it be ? 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 207 
 
 Ista. Not one of all these ! I would be best loved 
 Of all that have been, or shall ever be ! 
 
 Prince, Why, that's a woman's wish, and well fulfilled 
 Long ere 'twas uttered, when I show the world 
 Its ruling empress — 
 
 Izta. Stay ! I crave not that : 
 The empue I would have is one sweet home 
 With two hearts dwelling in it : I'd not seek 
 To sway but one, for that is all the world! 
 
 That is as handsome a piece of love-making as you will find 
 even in the old dramatists — those "grand old masters" of rheto- 
 rical sentiment. 
 
 In addition to the editorial labours above mentioned, Mrs. 
 French has edited The Crusader, a periodical devoted principally 
 to woman-literature, at Atlanta, Georgia; and she was associate- 
 editor with Dr. Powell, in his Ladie^ Home, a literary weekly, 
 published in 1866, at Atlanta. 
 
 I present one of heir legends as a pretty fair specimen of them 
 all, as to style, tone, art, and range of imagination. It is en- 
 titled The Legend of the Lost Soul, and is prefaced by the fol- 
 lowing introductory note from Herndon : — 
 
 "After midnight I was lulled to sleep by the melancholy notes 
 of a bird, called ' El Alma Perdida,' or the Lost Soul. Its wild 
 and wailing cry, from the deptlis of the forest, seemed, indeed, as 
 sad and despairing as that of one without hope. The story in 
 the Inca language runs somewhat thus : An Indian and his wife 
 went out from the village' to work their chacra, taking their infant 
 with them. The woman went to tlae spring to get water, leaving 
 the man in charge of the child, with many cautions to take good 
 care of it. When she arrived at the spring she found it dried up, 
 and went further to look for another. The hiisband, alarmed at 
 her long absence, left the child and went in search. When they 
 returned, the child was gone; and to their repeated cries, as 
 they wandered througli the woods in search, they could get no 
 
2o8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 response save the wailing cry of the little bird, heard for the first 
 time, whose notes their anxious and excited imagination syllabled 
 into pa-pa, ma-ma (the present Quichua name of the bird). I 
 suppose the Spanish heard this story, and with that religious 
 poetic turn of thought which seems peculiar to this people, 
 , called the bird The Lost Soul." 
 I give the poem entire : — 
 
 Ha ! what a frenzied cry 
 Up the lone forest-aisles comes sadly wailing, 
 Now quick and sharp, now choked with agony, 
 
 As sight and sense were failing. 
 
 The far stars coldly smiled 
 Down through the arches of the twilight wood. 
 Where sire and mother sought their child, 
 
 In the dark solitude. 
 
 And low the phantom wind 
 Came stealing o'er the hills with ghostly feet. 
 But paused not in its flight to bear one kind. 
 
 Soft echo, shrill and sweet. 
 
 O'er them the giant trees, 
 All proudly waving, tossed their arms on high. 
 Yet no loved baby-voice from 'midst of these. 
 
 Answered their broken cry. 
 
 But one sad piping note. 
 That strangely syllabled a blended name. 
 As seemed its cadences to fall or float. 
 
 From boughs above them came. 
 
 The mother started wild. 
 As that strange sound the forest foliage stirred. 
 Then hastened to the sire — she knew her child, 
 
 In that lone spirit-bird. 
 
 No word the father spake ; 
 His face v?as ghastly, and its haggard lines 
 Lay stem and rigid, like some frozen lake 
 
 O'eishadowed by its pines. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 209 
 
 Shuddering, she strove to speak, 
 Once more in nature's strong, appealing tones, 
 To suppUcate her child, — there came a shriek 
 
 That died in heavy moans. 
 
 The night came down ; afar 
 Was heard the hoarse, deSp baying of the storm. 
 And thunder-clouds around each captive star 
 
 In black battalions form. 
 
 Now, all the mighty wood 
 Has voices like tlie sullen sounding sea, 
 While onward rolls the deep majestic flood 
 
 His surges solemnly. 
 
 The massy foliage rocks, 
 Slow swaying to the wind ; and, falling fest 
 Embattled oaks, that braved a thousand shocks, 
 
 Are bending to the blast. 
 
 And crimson tropic bloom 
 Lies heaped upon the swardj as though a wave 
 Of summer sunset streams Within the gloom 
 
 Had fbund a verdant grave. 
 
 Down came the rushing rain. 
 But far, perchance Where thunders never roll 
 The bird hath flown, the parents called in vain. 
 
 Upon the wandering soul. 
 
 Then feebly 'mid the maze 
 Of 'wildering storm, their feet the cabin sought. 
 Oft turning back to seai'ch, with blinded gaze. 
 
 For that which now was not. 
 
 True, true, — the tale is old. 
 And full of sorrow the tradition hoary. 
 Yet, daily life's unwritten annals hold 
 
 A sterner, sadder story. 
 18* 
 
210 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Oh, hear ye not the cry, 
 That evei-y hour sends up where thick life presses, 
 That shrieks from lowest depths to God on high 
 
 From life's great wildernesses ? 
 
 It is the cry of Woman, 
 And hers the really lost and wandering soul. 
 Seeking, amid the godJike, yet the human. 
 
 To find her destined goal. 
 
 Like glacier of the North, 
 Her pure and shining spirit braves the sea 
 Of Life and Action, drifting, drifting forth, 
 
 On waves of Destiny. 
 
 " Deep calling unto deep ; " 
 How raves the ocean by the tempest tossed ! 
 Perchance her onward course the soul may keep. 
 
 Perchance 'tis wrecked or lost. 
 
 Perchance some other heart 
 In pride of Being, standing firm and free. 
 May call, " Oh, seeker of the better part. 
 
 Come, wanderer, to me ! " 
 
 Alas ! that dulcet tone 
 Is but the hollow music of a shell 
 That mocks the ocean ; yet, the pilgrim lone 
 
 It wins as by a speU. 
 
 The dream, the dream is past ; 
 Perchance some careless word, some fancied wrong. 
 The soul is driven forth, — oh, woe the last 1 
 
 The weaker by the strongr. 
 
 From her closed lips a moan 
 Goes up, yet. seems it her unspoken prayer 
 Falls back again upon her heart, alone 
 
 To sink and perish there. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. 2 II. 
 
 And then her spirit pants 
 Beneath the heat and burden of the day. 
 Still struggling on amid the vulture wants 
 
 That make her heart theiir prey. 
 
 Still, in its source of pain, 
 Clinging most fondly ; and, in holy trust. 
 Pouring its worship in a worse than vain 
 
 Idolatry on dust. 
 
 Like the great organ rocks 
 That rise on Orinoco's distant shore. 
 She sends rich music o'er the wave that mocks. 
 
 Yet answers her no more ! 
 
 From the still firmament 
 A star drops, sparldes, and almost before 
 The eye can note, is gone, — with chaos blent, 
 
 Its brilliancy is o'er. 
 
 And thus with thee, unknown. 
 Unrecognized, and lost in earthly clime. 
 Thy 'wildered soul may wander, and alone 
 
 Go from the shores of Time. 
 
 Yet, far in yon blue dome, 
 Where dwell the spirits of the dear departed, 
 There thou art laiown ; and they will welcome home 
 
 An angel, broken-hearted. 
 
 Then courage, weary one I 
 Work while thou may'st ; for though thy spirit, riven. 
 Is fading like a fountain in the sun. 
 
 Exhaled, it reaches Heaven ! 
 
a 12 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 RICHARD FULLER, D.D. 
 
 The Reverend Doctor Fuller was born at Beaufort, South 
 Carolina, in 1808. He practiced law with fine success for sev- 
 eral years; but then turned his labours to the ministry, as a 
 Baptist preacher. He is at present resident in BalHmore, Md., 
 where, since 1847, he has been connected with the Seventh 
 Baptist Church, in that city. He stands probably at the head 
 of thinkers and workers in that denomination, south. His works 
 are : — 
 
 1. Sermons. This volume was pubUshed several years ago — 
 before the war — and had fine success as a denominational 
 work. Dr. Fuller has now ready for publication — and will 
 shortly publish — three other volumes of Sermons, — making his 
 works of this class four volumes. 
 
 2. Correspondence with Bishop England, upon the Roman 
 Chancery. A duodecimo ; was pubUshed in Baltimore. 
 
 3. Correspondence with Dr. Wayland, on Slavery. 
 
 4. Letters. 
 
 5. An Argument on Baptist Close Communion. A duodecimo, 
 published in Richmond, in 1849. 
 
 6. The Psalmist, with Supplement. This is a joint compila- 
 tion for denominational use, made by Dr. Fuller and ReV. J. 
 B. Jeter, and was published in Boston. It is the hymn-book 
 now in general use in the United States, and has been adopted 
 by the Baptists in London and some of the British Provinces. 
 
 RICHARD FURMAN, D.D. 
 
 Among the men of eminent learning and piety in the Baptist 
 , denomination, the Rev. Dr. Furman stands high. He is a na- 
 tive of South Carolina, born in 1816, has devoted himself since 
 his graduation to the work of the ministry, and is to-day a resi- 
 dent of the town of Sumter, in his native state. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 2\% 
 
 Dr. Furman has published but one book, — The Pleasures of 
 Piety, and Other Poems, ^--vihidn. appeared' in 1859. ^^ this 
 volume are several poerris devoted to local scenery : one of the 
 best of this class on Table Rock, a spot of awe-inspiring beauty 
 in the Blue Ridge, near the northern boundary of the state. 
 
 I present as a specimen of the verse-style of our author some 
 Lines written during a Storm at Sea, — actually so written, I 
 am assured : — 
 
 Oh, who can fancy or portray 
 Tlie unskilled mariner's dismay, 
 
 When, roused from ocean's sleep. 
 The troubled spirit of the storm. 
 With giant pace and horrid form, 
 
 Marches across the deep ! 
 
 The whisper of the sleeping surge. 
 The low wind's melancholy dirge, 
 
 Are hushed in its long howl ; 
 The stars are from the concave driven, 
 Extinguished in the light of heaven. 
 
 Before its gathering scowl. 
 
 The waters mount, and rave, and roar. 
 Lashed from Atlantic's farthest shore. 
 
 Into a dazzling foam ; 
 The shrill blast whistles in the shrouds. 
 Collected are the flying clouds. 
 
 And darker grows the gloom. 
 
 As some serial being glides 
 
 From wave to wave, in stately strides. 
 
 So moves our gallant sail ; 
 Now furrows deep the heaving main, 
 Now stems the tide with jarring strain, 
 
 And bends before the gale ! 
 
 The tempest blackens, and from far 
 The loud winds wail; no friendly star 
 The dread abyss illumes, — 
 
214 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The waves reared from the -deep profound. 
 In undulations roll aroimd, 
 
 Like a wild waste of tombs. 
 
 Now, borne as on an eagle's wing. 
 The crested spray aside we fling, 
 
 And to the concave steer ; 
 And dashing on in heights sublime. 
 As if loosed from the shores of time. 
 
 We cleave the yielding air. 
 
 Around our tempest -battered bark. 
 With voice and step of thunder, hark ! 
 
 How Boreeis wildly raves ! 
 And, stalking o'er the dismal waste. 
 Drives, foaming with tumultuous haste, 
 
 A bellowing herd of waves. 
 
 With keel erect and steady shrouds 
 We steer majestic through the clouds, — 
 
 Then, swift as lightning's glare. 
 From our bleak height in fury hurled. 
 We seem to sink beneath the world. 
 
 And seek another sphere. 
 
 The parted billows round us close, 
 A boiling torrent o'er us flows, — 
 
 Hope for a moment dies ; 
 But soon emerging from the gloom. 
 We startle from our liquid tomb. 
 
 And scale again the skies. 
 
 Great Ruler of the stormy sea. 
 In this dark hour we look to Thee, 
 
 Our Saviour and our God ! 
 Thy people's prayer is ever heard, — 
 Oh calm with one controlling word 
 
 The waves which thou hast trod I 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 215 
 
 But if thy wisdom has decreed 
 A sepulchre in ocean's bed, 
 
 Be this one favour given, — 
 May we, of thy dear smiles possessed. 
 In triumph hail the shores of rest. 
 
 And anchor safe in heaven 1 
 
 Besides his poetical productions, which have not been emi- 
 nently successful in a literary sense, Dr. Furman has pubhshed 
 in pamphlet form several Sermons, Literary Addresses, etc. The 
 title of his volume of poems has done a great deal to deprive 
 them of popular appreciation. Pleasures of Piety is not an 
 attractive title for the Many. It sounds like preaching; and 
 disperses the multitude of readers who might have read with 
 pleasure and profit the same matter under another name. 
 
 JAMES McFADDEN GASTON, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Gaston is a native of South Carolina ; a graduate of the 
 State College at Columbia, and of the Medical College at 
 Charleston. He practiced medicine before the war for several 
 years — ten or more — in Columbia, and stood in the front rank 
 of his profession. He contributed occasionally to the medical 
 and scientific journals of the day; and paid some attention to 
 belles-lettres, writing verse sometimes. During the war he was 
 a Division Surgeon in the Army of Northern Virginia. At the 
 close of the war he went to Brazil in quest of a future home 
 for himself and family. 
 
 The only volume that Dr. Gaston has thus far published is an 
 account of that tropical region. It was pubhshed for the author 
 in 1867, and is entitled Hunting a Home in Brazil ; and gives 
 a lively but practical account of that country, with special refer- 
 ence to its being a home for the Southern immigrant. It lays 
 no claim to merely literary excellence, though it is written in a 
 
2lS LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 healthy, vigorous, and earnest style, that reflects credit upon 
 the learned autlaor. 
 
 Dr. Gaston is now in Brazil, with his family ; and the proba- 
 bility is that he will make it his permanent home. 
 
 CHARLES E. ARTHUR GAYARRE. 
 
 The principal of Mr. Gayarre's published works are the 
 following : — 
 
 1. An Historical Essay on Louisiana. Two volumes, i2mo. 
 Written in French, and first published in 1830. 
 
 2. Histoire de la Louisiana. In French. Two volumes, 8vo. 
 Published in 1846. This work is made very valuable as a source 
 of historical information, by a liberal use of original documents, 
 which the author collected during a sojourn of several years in 
 Europe, spent partly in France and partly in Spain. It begins 
 with the discovery of I^ouisiana, and comes down to 1769, when 
 the Spaniards took final possession of the colony. Of this work 
 a French critic of that day wrote : " Le style est d'une clart6 
 continue d'une simplicitS si modeste qu'on dirait par momens 
 qu'il 6vite r616gance comme un 6cueil ; les dates y sont ^chelon- 
 n6es avec une rare precision, et les 6vfenements se dSveloppent 
 avec une loyale impartiality. Tout y est 6nonc6 nett6ment, mod^- 
 r€ment, avec gout, avec sinc6rit6. J'avoue que ces qualit^s ont 
 leur valeur et que I'oeuvre qui les poss^de restera toujours." 
 
 ■i. Romance of the- History of Louisiana. In English. Published 
 in 1848. This is a charming book to read, in which Indian 
 legend, adventures, myths, and personal sketches alternate witli 
 graver historical points, in such style as to relieve the reader 
 from everything like monotony. It is legend, romance, yarn, 
 and history, aptly blended. 
 
 i^. Louisiana: its History as a French Colony^ First and 
 second series. Published in 1851 and 1852. Two octavo 
 volumes. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 217 
 
 5. History of Louisiana. In English. This is our author's 
 magnum opus, and comprises three large octavo Volumes, of 
 which two were first published in 1854, and the third since the 
 war. The first volume deails with the French' Domination ; 
 and the second with tlie Spanish Domination, coming down to 
 1803. The third, devoted to the American Domination, brings 
 down the history to the year 186 1, — the commencement of the 
 war of secession. This work is not a translation of the author's 
 history previously published in French, and mentioned above ; 
 but is an entirely different affair, of different cast, and far more 
 extensive. It goes far towards placing — if it do not distinctly 
 place — the author at the head of the list of historical writers of 
 the South. 
 
 6. Tht Sctiool for Politics : a Dramatic Novel. It might with 
 equal propriety have been st)'led a prose-drama. The design is 
 to satirize the political morals and manners of its day, — to 
 expose and rebuke the frauds and petty vices of the mere poli- 
 tician in America. The scene is Baton Rouge, the capital of 
 Ijouisiana; and the characters ai-e the governor, senators, 
 and representatives, and politicians in general, of that state. 
 The author disclaims striking at any party or individual ; and 
 forestalls any surmising in that direction by denying all person- 
 ality in the work. It was published in 1855. 
 
 7. Philip II. of Spain. This biographico-historical work ap- 
 peared in 1867, witli an Introductory Letter by George Bancroft. 
 The book is, as the author claims it to be, " a philosophical 
 reti-ospect of what was most memorable in Spain during that 
 period, as it was shaped by the controlling mind at the head of 
 affairs."' I shall quote a passage or two from tliis book, as 
 illustrative of the autlior's style. 
 
 8. Two Lectures on the Influence of the Mechanic Arts. 
 
 9. Dr. Bluff in Russia. A comedy. 
 
 10. Several separate Brochures, — articles, essaj^, addresses, 
 and papers on various subjects ; such as a pamphlet on Living- 
 ston's Criminal Code of Louisiana, in 1825 ; an Address to the 
 
 19 
 
2i8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 French Chambers on the Revohition of 1830 ; an Address to 
 the people of tlie state (Louisiana), upon pohtical frauds in 
 elections and similar abuses, in 1853; a Lecture on Oaths, 
 Amnesties, and RebelKon, delivered in New Orleans in January, 
 1866 ; the Anniversary Address before Dolbear Commercial 
 College, in February, 1867 ; and some others. 
 
 Mr. Gayarr€'s labours have been almost exclusively in the 
 domain of history; either direct history or politics, political 
 economy, and politico-historical biography, — all historical in 
 their nature. 
 
 As to historical matter, Mr. Gayarr6's theory is that the "best 
 way to narrate events faithfully, and to convey impressively a 
 correct idea of the moral tone and of the manners of society, at 
 any particular epoch, is to borrow the very language of those 
 who have described them as witnesses, and frequently as partici- 
 pators in what they recorded." Availing himself largely of this 
 theory, he has often abridged his own labour ; but at the same tiriie 
 has presented us with a depository for reference more valuable' 
 than most historical compositions are. His discussion of the 
 Spanish intrigues in the West with General Wilkinson and others, 
 to sever the union of the states, between the years 1786 and 
 1792, is full of vivid interest and startling but well-susta:ined 
 conclusions. 
 
 As to style, our author is always earnest, sometimes florid, 
 and too often careless. He handles antithesis with the hand of a 
 master. The following, selected from Philip II. of Spain, is a 
 fine illustrative example in point. It is a parallel between Philip 
 and his father, and both Plutarch and Macaulay have done 
 worse : — 
 
 " The singularity of a self-deceiving hallucination is n6 argu- 
 ment against the possibility of its existence, and no refutation 
 of the deductions which we have drawn. If they are correct, 
 Philip was a monster, but a monster unconscious of the whole 
 extent of his wickedness. 
 
 " He had begun his reign as the most powerful sovereign of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THJS SOUTH. 219 
 
 Europe, by the vastness, variety, and wealth of his dominions, as 
 well as hy his political and family connection. His marriage 
 with Mary of England had given him, through her, considerable 
 influence in that kingdom ; and, if he had not inherited the 
 imperial sceptre of his fadier, he may have consoled himself with 
 the reflection that it had fallen into the hands of his uncle, 
 Ferdinand. Philip had always entertained the most profound 
 veneration and admiration for his father, and felt for him all the 
 love of which his nature was susceptible. The reproaches of 
 fiUal ingratitude, addressed to him by some historians, are not 
 correct, and it is now demonstrated that he seldom' ceased to be 
 guided by the advice of the hermit of Yuste, which he even 
 frequently sought with due deference. The policy and designs 
 of Charles were, after his death, fully adopted and continued by 
 his son, but with such difierence in the ways and means as 
 necessarily resulted from their opposite dispositions. Both 
 had talents of the highest order, a cool judgment, a far-reaching 
 perspicacity, and a clear insight into men and things. Both 
 constituted themselves the representatives of Catholicity and 
 of religious unity. But here ended the resemblance ; if there 
 was similarity of purpose, there was dissimilitude of action ;. and 
 it could not be otherwise. Charles was a native of Flanders, 
 where he had been educated. As such, and in his habits, tastes, 
 and predilections, he was uncongenial to the Spaniards, whose 
 language he did not even speak. By them he was looked upon 
 as a foreigner, to whom, by the accident of birth, they unfortu- 
 nately owed allegiance. He, on the other hand, did not love 
 Spain; like William of Orange, the Batavian restorer of the 
 liberties of England in a later age, he never could divest himself 
 of his early partialities; while Philip, who was as intensely 
 Spanish as any of the most idolized heroes of Castile, where he 
 was bom, was disliked by his Flemish subjects, whose idiom he 
 did not even condescend to know ; and yet Philip, although a 
 Spaniard, was as cold-blooded and phlegmatic as any Fleming, 
 while Charles, a Fleming, had all the vivacity and warm impulses 
 
220 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of the Spanish temperament. It had the appearance of a capri- 
 cious freak of nature, or it looked as if their cradles had been 
 accidently misplaced; perhaps it was providential; for if Philip 
 had been like Charles, it is probable that the events which led 
 to the independence of the Netherlands would not have taken 
 place, at least under his reign. Charles would not have remained 
 in Spain, like PhUip, as motionless as an incrustation in the 
 Escurial, when threatened with flie loss of those provinces. He 
 would have gone in person to remove their discontents. He 
 was free, open, and captivating, in his manners; he adapted 
 himself, when he chose, to localities and nationalities ; he was, 
 as it were, a cosmopolite. Philip was repulsive, sombre, taciturn, 
 fond of isolation, and destitute of human sympathies. Charles 
 was a meteor, which warmed the atmosphere through which it 
 winged its course. Philip was an iceberg, which would have 
 congealed even the gentlest tropical waves. The Emperor was 
 an ambulatoiy statesman, who seemed to draw inspiration from 
 the perpetual motion in which he rejoiced ; the King, equally as 
 politic, was a fixture in his own cabinet, and the sluggishness of 
 his body seemed to impart more restless activity to his mind. 
 Charles was indefatigable in all corporeal exercises, as befitted a 
 fearless knight, a skillful warrior, who delighted in danger and in 
 the clash of arms ; PhiUp, physically indolent, was so averse to the 
 stem joys of martial life, that his courage was even suspected. 
 Charles was ambitious of governing the world, and would have 
 wished, if possible, to have been present, at the same time, in all 
 its parts. He seemed to have thought that the imperial purple 
 required of him the ubiquity of God. But, if the father held the 
 sword with the ever-ready hand of the hero, the son, who never 
 drew one from its scabbard, and for whom it was a useless appen- 
 dage, had a scribe's passion for wielding the pen, and aspired to 
 rule Europe from the cell of the monastery. Charles dictated 
 laws in person to every country in Europe which he had inherited 
 or conquered; Philip sent them from his writing-desk. The 
 Emperor issued, face to face with his enemies, those mandates 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 221 
 
 which intimidated them. They saw the flasli of his eye, the 
 motion of his lips ; they heard the deep intonations of the 
 Cnssar's voice. The King, like one of the.hideous idols of India, 
 hidden from the sight of his subjects in a sanctuary, terrified the 
 eartli by decrees which came from an invisible source. The 
 father was the lightning, shooting from one extremity of the 
 horizon to the other, and stiiking with Olympian power and 
 majesty. .The son was a .grim-looking engine, riveted to one 
 spot, but flinging afar its missiles of death. The father, like the 
 gods of Homer, seemed in a few strides, to overcome distance 
 by land and sea. . The son, relentless and fixed as fate, in the 
 gloom of his half-royal and half-monkish residence, ran his finger 
 over a map, and marked the spot where desolation was to alight. 
 Wherever there was a grand public assembly in Europe, a diet, 
 a congress, or a council, there was Charles. Personating the 
 genius of diplomacy, Philip sent abroad his ambassadors, and 
 diose agents of his subtle nnnd and iron will felt that their 
 master, wrapped up in mystery and seclusion in his impenetrable 
 retreat, knew more than they did of the business which they had 
 to, manage, and of the men with whom they had to deal." 
 
 Has either Plutarch or Macaiday done better? 
 
 In his. legends, Mr. Gayarr6 is eminently pleasing, and wields 
 a genial and playfiil pen, that suits the lightness of his subject, 
 with wonderfiil skjllj as in the myth of the Pascagoulas — the 
 supernatural disappearance of that whole people with the linger- 
 ing, mystic music, that tlie boatman hears of stiU, peaceful nights, 
 "even unto tlie present, day." That exquisite legend owes its 
 tangible form to Mr^ Gayarr6's facile, and versatile pen. 
 
 CharleaJJ. Ajcthur Gayarr6 was bom in Louisiana, on Thursday, 
 the 3d of, January, 18.05. His name and family are identified 
 with the history, af his native State, from its earliest stages, and 
 through its numerous mutations of authority. On the paternal 
 side^ the family dates backl to Don Estavan de GayarrS, the 
 .great cardador, or royal .comptroller, who came to America with 
 UUoa, the first Spanish governor of those immense colonial pos- 
 19* 
 
222 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTIT: 
 
 sessions, as one of his chief ministers of state. He was educated 
 at the College of New Orleans, where, as a student, he was dis- 
 tinguished for his attainments. His law studies were pursued in 
 the law office of William Rawle, Esquire, Philadelphia, where he 
 was admitted to the bar, in 1829. The next year he returned to 
 New Orleans, and made his debut as an author, by publishing his 
 Historical Essay on Louisiafia, in French, mentioned above. 
 The same year — 1830 — he was elected to the Legislature of 
 Louisiana. 
 
 In 1 83 1 he was appointed Deputy Attorney-Geneila]. 
 
 In 1833 he was appointed Presiding Judge of the City Court 
 of New Orleans. 
 
 In 1835 he was elected to the United States Senate; but ill 
 health prevented his taking his seat. Instead, he made a health 
 tour to Europe, where he spent seven or eight years, returning 
 to New Orleans in October, 1843. These years in Europe 
 were spent in study, in making historical collections, and in 
 pushing forward historical investigations, in both Spain and 
 France. 
 
 In 1844 he was again elected to the Legislature of Louisiana, 
 where his efforts were directed, with his characteristic zeal, and 
 with important results, to a reduction of the State debt. He was 
 reelected, upon the expiration of his term, in 1846 ; but receiv- 
 ing the appointment of Secretary of State, he preferred that 
 office to a seat in the Legislature, and continued in the secretariat 
 seven years. It was during this period that he prepared some 
 of his most careful works. The State Library owes its existence 
 to Mr. GayarrS's labours during this period. 
 
 In 1869 he is an eminent lawyer'of New Orleans ; a somewhat 
 eccentric student of books, and devoted to literary pursuits ; a 
 gentleman of the old school, affable, courteous, and engaging as 
 a conversationist ; a thinker of the old rigime ; a conservative 
 in politics ; a gocd listener, but a better talker, in society ; and 
 is deservedly the pride of his circle of admirers, which is very 
 large. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 223 
 
 In 1857, M. Dufour, in his Esquisses Locales, thus characterized 
 some of the personal traits of Mr. Gayarr6 : " Je crois pouvoir 
 dire que je n'ai jamais vu son gout en defaut ; il y a dans toute 
 sa personne un cachet de distinction auquel il parait tenir beau- 
 coup. II est essentiellement un homme de salon ; la politique 
 n'a fait ici aucun tort au monde. II cause mieux qu'il ne parle ; 
 ceci n'est point un paradoxe, je vous I'assure. On rencontre 
 bon nombre d'hommes publics chez lesquels il est facile d' ob- 
 server le ph6nom6ne • — la parole aisfee et brillante dans un cercle 
 s'amollit et succombe sou vent k la tribune. M. GayarrS possfede 
 la causerie fran^aise, vive, d^li6e, color6e j niais ici comme ailleurs, 
 s'il faut en croire la renonim6, il ne suivra jamais les 61ans de 
 r esprit jusqu'en ses hasajrds. Les hommes de cette nature font 
 rarement mal ; ils plaisent presque toujours ; mais ils n'fiton- 
 neront jamais." 
 
 Mr. Gayarrd's physiognomy is striking; French, but thought- 
 ful ; severe, but genial. His forehead is large, and very full in 
 the region of what the phrenologist calls Comparison, Memory, 
 and Human Nature. 
 
 His chirograph is not careful nor elegant, nor very distinctly 
 legible. It is eccentric, showy, and irijdicative of sensitiveness, 
 impatience, fervour, and- irregular activity of mind. It is direct, 
 honest, 2xA prononce ; and wants repose. 
 
 BASIL L. GILDERSLEEVE, Ph. D. 
 
 Dr. GiLDERSLEEVE is the Professor of Ancient Languages in 
 the University of Virginia. He is the author of — 
 
 1. Outlines of Latin Grammar. Published in 1867. 
 
 2. A Progressive Latin Reader. Published at the same time 
 that the Outlines were. 
 
224 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. CAROLINE HOWARD OILMAN. 
 
 Mrs. Oilman — nie Caroline Howard — is a daughter of Mr. 
 Samuel Howard, a shipwright of Boston, Massadiusetts ; and 
 was bom in that city on Monday, tiie 8th of October, 1794. 
 Her father's death left her an orphan at the age of three. Her 
 mother moved into the country ; and thus, in the country or in 
 the country-towns of her native state, our author spent the early 
 years of her life. She was precocious. In her naive sketch of 
 her own life, whicli was published in Hart's Female Prose- Writers 
 of America, and reproduced in part by the Duyckincks in their 
 Cyclopedia, and by Mrs. Freeman in her Women of the South 
 Distinguished in Literature, and by several others, — she informs 
 us that she remembers her own baptism, which occurred when she 
 was five weeks old; and gives us details — mentions the cold 
 November morning, the north aisle of the church, the minister 
 bending over her in his bush-wig, and touching his finger to 'her 
 befrilled little forehead, and so forth, and so forth. 
 
 This is perhaps the most wonderful instance of infant inembry' 
 on record. 
 
 She wrote verses at ten. 
 
 Her first published verses — Jephthah'' s Rash Vow — appeared 
 when she was sixteen. 
 
 She was a resdess, reading, pious, poetical young lady. 
 
 In 18 1 9 she married the Rev. Samuel Oilman, afterwards for 
 many years pastor of the Unitarian Church in Charleston, South 
 Carolina ; and moved with him to that city ; and tiiat city has 
 been her home since that time. 
 
 In 1832 she commenced the publication of The Rose-Bud, a 
 weekly for. children, — the first juvenile newspaper, it is said, ever 
 issued in America. This sheet, was developed into The Southern 
 Rose, and had its days of usefulness and influence. 
 
 Mrs. Oilman's published works are : — 
 
 1. The Ladies? Annual Register for 1838. 
 
 2. Ruth Raymond; or, Love's Progress. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 225 
 
 3. The Poetry of Travelling in the United States. 1838. 
 
 4. Recollections of a Housekeeper. • 
 
 5. Recollections of a New-England Bride. 
 
 6. Recollections of a Southern Matron. 
 
 7. The Rose-Bud Wreath. 
 
 8. Verses of a Lifetime. 1849. 
 
 9. Mrs. Gilman's Gift-Book of Stories and Poems for Chil- 
 dren. 1850. 
 
 10. The Humming-Bird. 
 
 11. The Little Wreath. 
 
 12. Oracles from the Poets, — a fanciful diversion for the 
 drawing-room. 1852. 
 
 13. Sibyl; or, New Oracles from the Poets. 
 
 14. Oracles for Youth. 1854. 
 
 15. Stories and Tales for Children. 
 
 16. Tales and Ballads. . 
 
 17. Besides these, works, — original, collected, or compiled, — 
 she has edited a very curious and interesting book of Letters 
 from Eliza Wilkinson, during the .Invasion of Charleston. 
 
 It will be apparent that she has directied her genius mainly to 
 the entertainment and instruction of children. An odour of youth 
 pervades aU that she has written, — an odour also of hymnology, 
 catechism, and Sunday-Schools. 
 
 The following rhymes, entitled The Plantation, are illustra- 
 tive of our author's verse-style, and are, as far. as I can judge, 
 a fair specimen of her art, range, and sphere as a verse- writer. 
 I give the piece entire : — 
 
 Farewell awhue the city's hum. 
 
 Where busy footsteps fall. 
 And welcome to my weary eye 
 
 The planter's friendly hall. 
 
 Here let me rise at early dawn. 
 
 And list the mock-bird's lay, 
 That^ warbling near our lowland home^ 
 
 Sits on the waving spray. 
 
226 LIFING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Then tread the shading avenues 
 Beneath the cedar's gloom, 
 
 Or gum-tree, with its flickered shade. 
 Or chinquapin's perfume. 
 
 The myrtle tree, the orange wild, 
 The cypress' flexile hough. 
 
 The holly with its polished leaves. 
 Are all before me now. 
 
 There, towering.with impeiiol pride. 
 The ridi magnolia stands, 
 
 And here, in softer loveliness, . 
 The white-bloomed bay expands. 
 
 The long gray moss hangs gracefully, 
 
 Idly I twine its wreathes. 
 Or stop to catch the fragrant air 
 
 The frequent blossom breathes. 
 
 Life wakes around, — the red bird darts 
 Like flame from tree to tree. 
 
 The whippoorwill complains alone, 
 The robin whistles free. 
 
 The frightened hare scuds by my path, 
 And seeks the thicket nigh. 
 
 The squirrel climbs the hickory-bough. 
 Thence peeps with carefid eye. 
 
 The humming-bird, with busy wing. 
 In rainbow beauty moves. 
 
 Above the trumpet-blossom floaty. 
 And sips the tube he loves. 
 
 Triumphant to yon withered pine 
 
 The soaring eagle flies ; 
 There builds her eyry 'mid the clouds^ 
 
 And man and heaven defies. 
 
LIVTNG WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 227 
 
 The hunter's bugle echoes near. 
 
 And see, his weary train 
 With mingled howUng scent the woods. 
 
 Or scour the open plain. 
 
 Yon skiff is darting from the cove. 
 
 And list the negro's song. 
 The theme — his owner and his boat — 
 
 While glide the crew along. 
 
 And when the leading voice is lost. 
 
 Receding from the shore. 
 His brothejr boatmen swell the strain 
 
 In chorus with, the oar. 
 
 Past the age of three-score years and ten, this venerable lady- 
 still retains much of that vivacity which characterizes so much of 
 her writing. She is resident in Charleston, sometimes spending 
 the summer season in the mountains. 
 
 HARRY GILMOR. 
 
 Major GiLMOR is the author of Four Years in the Saddle, 
 which gives in its title the scope of the subject-matter — four 
 years of cavalry semce in the Confederate cause. He is a 
 Baltimorean. His book gives us the man. 
 
 F. R. GOULDING. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Goulding stands at the head of the class of 
 writers for youth. It is his specialty, and he excels in it. 
 
 He was born on Friday, the 28th of September, 1810 ; received 
 his academical education at Lexington, Georgia; graduated in 
 the University of Georgia, at Athens, in 1830; and completed 
 ■ his institutional course Jjy graduating in the Presbyterian Theo- 
 logical Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, in 1833. 
 
2 28 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The failure of his voice has debarred him the privilege of 
 labour as a preacher ; and thus it comes that he is a writer of 
 books. He has lived a good deal of his life at Macon ; but at 
 this time he dates from Rosswell, Cobb County, Georgia. His 
 works are : — 
 
 1. Robert Harold, or the Young Marooners on the Florida 
 Coast, — which was published by the Martiens of Philadelphia, in 
 1852. It was reproduced by three publishing-houses in Great 
 Britain, in 1853; and by three others since that date. During 
 the first year of its appearance in London (Nisbet & Co.), 
 Edinburgh, and Glasgow, thirteen thousand copies were sold. 
 During the war the work, revised and enlarged, was republished 
 in Georgia ; and from this edition the successors to the Martiens 
 liave published — in 1866 — an edition under the title of The 
 Young Marooners of the Florida Coast. Thirteen thousand 
 copies of the American editions have been sold. I mention 
 these items because they indicate the popularity of the book. 
 It is a fiction of stirring adventures, excitingly interesting to boys 
 and youth of the go-away-to-sea style. A friend calls it "A 
 Crusoic book for boys, and the best of its class." 
 
 2. Little Josephine, — - a small Sunday-School volume, — -was 
 published by the American Sunday-School Union of New York, 
 in 1844. 
 
 3. Marooner's Island, or Dr. Gordon in Search of His Chil- 
 dren, — a tale for boys, — appeared serially in Burkis Weekly for 
 Boys and Girls, in 1867 ; and was to be put into book form 
 early in 1869, by a Philadelphia publishing-house. 
 
 4. Frank Gordon ; or When I Was a Little Boy, — appeared 
 serially in the Riverside Magazine, of New York, and is expected 
 in book form. If the foregoing stories were juvenile, this one is 
 juvenilior. 
 
 5. Fishing and Fishes, is another serially-issued work, to be 
 embooked soon. 
 
 6. Life-Scenes from the Gospel History, is a religious work, 
 sdon to be published in book form. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 229 
 
 ALEXANDER GREGG, D.D. 
 
 During the last months of 1867 there appeared from this 
 writer a History of the Old Cheraws, containing an account of 
 the Aborigines of the Pee Dee, — a section of eastern South 
 CaroUna, — the first white settlement, their various fortunels,^ the 
 Revolution, and later history of the section; covering eighty 
 yefirs — 1730 to 1810-^with sfcetches> of individuals and fam- 
 ilies. 
 
 The Eight Rev. Alexander Greggs, D.D., Bishop of the Pro- 
 testant Episcopal Church in Texas, is a native^ I have been 
 informed, of Cheraw District, South Carolina. He was formerly 
 rector of the Episcopal Church, in the town of Cheraw. 
 
 His work is one of rare research and curious interest. The 
 scope .and design of the book are thus gijven by Bishop Gregg 
 himself, in his pjceface; — ; 
 
 " Though in the main a local history, and, for that reason chiefly 
 interesting to those who, ty nativity or descent, are more imme- 
 diately connected with this portion of Carolina, there is yet of 
 necessity a close and continuous connection throu^out with the 
 history of the State at large, — a history which, except by the aid 
 of such detailed accounts of particular localities, can never be 
 fully written. Much, therefore, of general interest, will be found 
 in the following pages, more especially in the period which im- 
 mediately preceded the Revolution, and during the progress of 
 that eventful conflict." 
 
 HUGH B. GRIGSBY. 
 
 This writer, who is the author of The Virginia Convention of 
 1776, was recently a resident of Charlotte Court-House, Virginia. 
 
230 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MISS CAROLINE GRISWOLD. 
 
 Miss Griswold has been known- for five or six years as an 
 occasional contributor of lyrical poems to the press of the South, 
 especially that in South Carolina, at the metropolis of which State 
 — Charleston — she at present resides. She is the youngest 
 daughter of the Rev. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, and, I presume, 
 was born in New- York City ; but has chosen the South as her 
 home, it having been that of her mother, — nee Miss Myers, of 
 Charleston, — who was a Jewess. Her sister, Mrs. Hartley, is also 
 said to be distinguished for her mental gifts. Miss Griswold has 
 been described as "of middling size, having brilliant black eyes, 
 and black hair ; animated and engaging in style." 
 
 As a writer, Miss Griswold has produced several tales of vivid 
 interest ; but she is best and most favourably known as a writer 
 of verse. I give Twilight Musings, as fairly illustrative of her 
 style, and of her theory of beauty : — . 
 
 I. 
 
 It is the twilight hour, — the day has reft 
 The glowing radiance from the summer sky. 
 
 But dearer, lovelier beauties stili are left 
 To cheer the heart and chain the wandering eye. 
 
 Where the resplendent orb in beauty gleamed. 
 Float clouds of crimson edged with paly gold, 
 
 And through the curtain bright the sunlight seemed 
 To flash a richer glory than of old. 
 
 111. 
 Beauty hath power the wayward heart to quell 
 
 And gentler feelings to that heart restore, 
 While memory comes obedient to the spell. 
 
 Bearing the garlands that we loved of yore. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 231 
 
 IV. 
 
 Garlands of gentle smiles and loving words, 
 Woven by lips all cold and silent now, — 
 
 Lips, that to others weave their greetings fond, — 
 Lips, that to others breath affection's vow. 
 
 V. 
 
 And must it ever be ? Must hearts grow cold 
 That once responsive to our presence thrilled ? 
 
 Must voices lose the tenderness of old? 
 For lis their melody evermore be stilled ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 No ! 'tis not ever thus, — fond hearts and true 
 Still gently soothe the wearied one to rest ; 
 
 Then peace, sad heart ! thou bird of life be still ! 
 Nor flutter wildly in thy shadowed nest. 
 
 VII. 
 Not always sad are these still twilight hours, 
 
 Visions of gladness come with beauty meet. 
 With a rich fragrance like the lovely flowers 
 
 A lavish Nature scatters at otu' feet. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Bright dreams of joy, telling of love and truth 
 
 In the dim future, to our hopeful eyes. 
 Bidding the smiles of banished hope return, 
 
 Filling the heart with sweet and glad surprise. 
 
 Among Miss Griswold's lyrics are some songs tliat exhibit far 
 more music than originality ; but are very well as songs, which, 
 to be popular, ought never to be too original. I give To Whom ? 
 as a fair specimen : — 
 
 My heart is full to-night, beloved. 
 
 Of murmuring deep and low. 
 Tears come like silent messengers 
 
 From the land of "Long-ago ; " 
 
232 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 They come with th? thoughts of thee, beloved. 
 
 Thoughts full of wild regret. 
 Why can I not forget the past. 
 
 Why can I not forget ? 
 
 The night is very Ijeautiful, 
 
 The sky ig clear above. 
 And the golden stars look gently down 
 
 With eyes of pitying love. 
 'Twas such a night as this, beloved. 
 
 The hight when first we met. 
 But oh, that time is over now, — 
 
 Why can I not forget ? 
 
 In the far-off land of Memory, 
 
 The fearful echo floats, 
 " Gone ! gone ! " but still my heart responds 
 
 To Love's more silvery notes. 
 We never more may meet on earth. 
 
 Yet still I'll ne!er regret 
 That dream so bright, so beautiful. 
 
 No, no ! I'll not forget ! 
 
 2 he Beautiful Snow is sectional, of the timeg, and suggestive 
 of tender and mournful feeling : — 
 
 I. 
 The snowflakes are falling swiftly, 
 
 The children are wild with glee, 
 As they dream of the merry pastime 
 
 The morrow's mom will see. 
 And faces are bright in their youthful glow. 
 As they watch the falling, beautiful snow. 
 
 II. 
 Within that pleasant parlour. 
 
 The mother alone is still, 
 She feels not the snow that falls without. 
 
 But her throbbing heart is chill. 
 As she turns away from the fireside glow 
 To look abroad on the beautiful snow 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 233 
 
 III. 
 
 God help those eyes despairing. 
 
 That gaze at the snow-clad earth, 
 God pity the mad rebellion 
 
 That in that heart had birth. 
 The children sire gone, and a sound of woe 
 Breaks through the night o'er the beautiful snow ! 
 
 The woman's face, all ghastly, 
 
 Lies pressed to the window-pane. 
 But no sound of human anguish 
 
 Escapes her lips again ; 
 'Twas the cry of a woman's heart crushed low, 
 Whose hopes lay dead 'neath the beaiitiful snow ! 
 
 The firelight glanced arid sparkled 
 
 In contrast to her gloom, — 
 It gilded the books and pictures. 
 
 And lit up the cheerful room) — 
 While, through the casement, its crimson glow 
 Threw a band of light on the beautiful snow ! 
 
 She shrank from the mocking brightness, 
 That sought to win her there ; '"■ 
 
 Far better to watch the snowflakes 
 Than gaze at a vacant chair, 
 
 A chair that never again could know 
 
 A form now still neath the beautiful snow ! 
 
 Many a night-watch had he known 
 
 And many a Vigfl kept, 
 While the snowflakes fell around him. 
 
 And all his comrades slept ; 
 For his heart was strong, in its patriot glow. 
 As he gazed abroad at the beautiful snow ! 
 20* 
 
234 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH'. 
 
 He too had watched the snowflabes, 
 And laughed as they whirled him by, — 
 
 Had watched, as they drifted round him. 
 With bright, undaunted eye ; 
 
 But now there rests not a stone to show 
 
 The soldier's grave 'neath the beautiful snow ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 The mourner's eye roved sadly, 
 
 In search of the vacant chair, 
 To rest in loving wonder 
 
 On a young chUd slumbering there ; 
 And she caught from his baby-lips the low, 
 Half-murmured words, " The beautiful snow 1 " 
 
 With a sudden, passionate yearning. 
 
 She caught him to her breast. 
 And smiled in the eyes, that in their calm. 
 
 Rebuked her own unrest, — 
 Eyes that had caught their kindlmg glow 
 From the father that lay 'neath the Ijeautiful snow ! 
 
 Again she stood at the casement. 
 
 And smiled at her baby's glee. 
 As he turned from the feathery snowflakes 
 
 Her answering smile to see — 
 Her little child that never could know 
 The father that lay 'neath the beautiful snow ! 
 
 Ah ! many a widowed heart doth throb 
 
 In its bitterness alone. 
 And many an orphan's tears still fall 
 
 Above some honoured stone. 
 Fond _h,eai-ts must bleed, and tears must flow. 
 
 For the loved and lost 'ijieath the beautiful snow ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 235 
 
 MRS. LAURA GWY>T. 
 
 A volume of miscellaneous verses, entitled Poems, by Laura 
 Gwyn, was published about die year i860. The poems are 
 largely religious. Mrs. Gwyn is, I am infornied, the wife of a 
 Methodist preacher, and lives in Greenville, Soudi Carolina. 
 The following tribute to Father Ryan, who is the author of a 
 collection of poems called Sentinel Songs, may illustrate Mrs. 
 Gwyn's more recent Muse. It bears date of 1868 : — 
 
 You utter many thoughts, sweet bard. 
 That gentle hearts perforce must hold. 
 As raisers treasure gems and gold. 
 
 Or saints their sacred relics guard. 
 
 Soft strains or high you pour at will 
 Along your harp of " solemn soimd ; " 
 Prone to your touch our pulses bound; 
 
 Beneath your burning words we thrill. 
 
 The bell-bird, sitting high and lone. 
 
 In the deep forest, pouifeth clear 
 
 Its toiling voice upon the air. 
 Till the far travellers catch its tone ; 
 
 And thrill to hear itswild notes swell, 
 
 And, hastening on with eager feet, 
 
 Thinketh its music, loud and sweet. 
 Chimes from some grand cathedral bell ! 
 
 O minstrel of the iron Southland ! 
 
 'Tis yours, through darkness wild and drear, 
 
 FiUl many a weary soul to cheer. 
 With pipings sweet an(i chantings grand ! 
 
 To you a glorious task belongs, — 
 O crown the deeds of warriors brave ! 
 O guard the heroes grass-grown grave 
 
 With deathless sentinels of song ! 
 
236 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 
 
 MISS S. J. HANCOCK. 
 
 This lady — the author of a novel entitled The Montanas, 
 which was published in 1868 — is a native of Kentucky. She 
 has written, I am informed, no other works. 
 
 MRS. BELLE BOYD HARDINGE. 
 
 The notoriety attained by Miss Belle Boyd during the war, as 
 a Confederate partisan and a woman of spirit and daring, pre- 
 pared the reading public to expect something piquant in her 
 book, — Belle Boyd, in Camp and Prison, — published in 1865 ; 
 and the expectation was hardly disappointed, though the woirk 
 was not a very decided successj viewed either from a Uterary or 
 from a sensational standpoint. 
 
 Mrs. Hardinge is a daughter of Dr. Boyd, of Martinsburg, 
 Virginia ; did good service for the South ; was a prisoner of war, 
 for months ; married a Federal officer at the end of the war, 
 and visited Europe; The last item of her is of her appearance 
 upon the stage, in New" York, with a view to adopting that as 
 her profession. She appeared first in January, 1868 ; and about 
 the same time was announced the fact that the Supreme Court 
 of New York had granted her a decree of divorce from Mr. 
 Hardinge. 
 
 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. 
 
 Of our young writers, — writers of energy, hope, and ability, 
 who promise to become men of mark in letters, — there are few, 
 if any, who rank higher than Chandler Harris. 
 
 He was born in Eatonton, Georgia, on Tuesday, the 8th of 
 December, 1846. He educated himself at the printer's case. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 237 
 
 Wanting, doubtless, some degree of the polish of scholastic cul- 
 ture, he has an energy and a self-reliance thus developed, that 
 will be worth more to him in the battle for fame than the most 
 skillfully-adjilisted academical armour. He practices law at 
 Forsyth, Georgia. 
 
 Mr. Harris has written a good deal for literary periodicals in 
 the South, for four or five years, both in prose and verse. Essays, 
 sketches, and lyrics have appeared from his pen that would have 
 done honour to older heads. He has in preparation a work to 
 be entitled Gems of Southern Poetry, to' consist of illustrative 
 poems by the best Southern poets, together with biographical 
 sketches. 
 
 As a poet,. Mr. Harris has the true principles of the art poetic. 
 He recognizes the twaddle about inspiration as twaddle, and 
 looks to legitimate art to accomplish its own mission. This 
 principle will be of infinite use to him as a crjtic, and no less so 
 as a poet. I clip from the New Orleans Sunday Times the. fol- 
 lowing little poem tliat very happily biends the conflicting voices 
 of Hope and Memory ; and the theme is tersely and musically 
 expressed. It is called The Old and the New : — 
 
 I. 
 Clasp hands with those who are going. 
 
 Kiss the lips that are raised to be kissed. 
 For the life of the Old Year is flowing 
 And -melting away in the mist. 
 
 II. 
 A shadow lies black on the water, 
 
 A silence hangs over the hill. 
 And the echo comes fainter and shorter, 
 
 From the river that rmis by the mill. 
 
 III. 
 Greet the New Year with music and laughter. 
 
 Let the Old shrink away wit^f a tear 1 
 But we shall remember hereafter 
 
 The many who die with the year. 
 
238 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ay ! we shall regret and remember 
 Mary, and Maud, and Irene, 
 
 Though the swift-falling snow of December 
 Lies over them now as a screen ; 
 
 And the alternate sunshine and shadow 
 Sweep over their graves with a thrill, — 
 
 Irene lies asleep in the meadow, 
 And Mary and Maud on the hill. 
 
 Clasp hands with those who are going, 
 Kiss the lips that are raised to be kissed. 
 
 For the life of the Old Year is flowing. 
 And melting away in the mist. 
 
 In a gentler vein is Agnes. It has the pla)^ul tenderness 
 of Timrod, and something of the graceful antithesis of Flash 
 in it: — 
 
 She has a tender, winning way. 
 
 And walks the earth with gentle grace. 
 
 And roses with the lily play 
 Amid the beauties of her face. 
 
 Whene'er she tunes her voice to sing. 
 The song-birds list, with anxious looks, 
 
 For it combines the notes of spring 
 With all the music of the brooks. 
 
 Her merry laughter, soft and low, 
 
 Is as the chimes of silver bells, 
 That, like sweet anthems, float and flow 
 
 Through woodland groves and bosky dells. 
 
 And when the violets see her eyes, 
 
 They flush and glow with love and shame, 
 
 Then meekly droop with sad surprise. 
 As though unworthy of the name. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 239 
 
 But still they bloom where'er she throws 
 
 Her dainty glance and smiles so sweet. 
 And e'en amid stern water's snows 
 
 The daisies spring beneath her feet. 
 
 She wears a crown of Purity, 
 
 Full set with woman's brightest gem, — 
 
 A wreath of maiden modesty. 
 And Virtue is the diadem. 
 
 And when the pansies bloom again, 
 
 And spring and summer intertwine, 
 Great joys will fall on me like rain. 
 
 For she will be forever mine ! 
 
 JOHN E. HATCHER. 
 
 This rather eccentric poet, litterateur, and journalist, was born 
 in Bedford County, Virginia. He began his editorial career in 
 1851, at Columbia, Tennessee, where he conducted, until the 
 latter part of 1858, with an interregnum of a year or so, a weekly 
 political and literary journal, one of the former editors of which 
 was the lamented General F. R. Zollikoffer. In the winter of 
 i860 he was elected State Librarian by the legislature of Ten- 
 nessee ; left Nashville on the fall of Fort Donelson, and moved 
 South. Being unfitted, from physical causes, for the life of a 
 soldier, did not enter the service at once, but joined the Army of 
 the Tennessee, under General Bragg, at Chattanooga, and served 
 as a volunteer on the staff of Major-General Alexander P. Stew- 
 art until after the battle of Missionary Ridge and the retreat to 
 Dalton, when he went to Atlanta as one of the editors of the 
 Daily Registei^, where he remained until the fall of that city. 
 When the publication of the Mobile Advertiser and Register 
 was resumed, in 1865, he became one of the editors, a position 
 he now holds. Most of his rhymes are of a humorous cliarac- 
 ter, written for the columns of the difierent newspapers with 
 
240 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 which he has been connected, and published under the pseudo- 
 nym of George Washington Bricks. Some of his earlier pieces, 
 however, appeared originally in the Louisville y^«r«fl/. 
 
 As a specimen of Mr. Hatcher's serio-sentimental verse, I 
 present Katie Lyle, which has been set to music and published 
 in that form, in Mobile. As a piano-piece it met, notwithstand- 
 ing its length, with much favour : — 
 
 O Katie Lyle ! fair Katie Lyle ! 
 Call from those lips that witching smile, 
 And hide those clustering curls that chase 
 Their laughing shadows o'er thy face ! 
 
 turn away that dimpled cheek, 
 
 Where Love and Mirth play hide-and-seek ; 
 Let those soft lashes veil thine eyes, 
 Wherein so much of mischief lies ! 
 
 Yes, hide them all ! I will not yield 
 My heart on such unequal field ; 
 
 1 will not -risk a conflict in 
 
 A field where I can nothing win. 
 
 So frail mine armour, Katie Lyle, 
 I must not, dare not see thee smile. 
 Nor watch those clustering ringlets chase 
 Their laughing shadows o'er thy face. 
 
 I dare not let my glances seek 
 To kiss again that dimpled cheek ; 
 I dare not face the spell that lies 
 Within the depths of thy dark eyes. 
 
 I long have felt — I still must feel — 
 'Tis not for me to break the seal 
 Upon thy heart, and wake thee from 
 That dream wherein Love's voice is dumbk 
 
 Could I but hope there comes to thee 
 Sometimes a gentle thought of me, 
 O Katie Lyle ! this heart of mitie 
 With all its Wealth of love were thine ! 
 
LIVING WRITMRS OF THE SOUTH. 241 
 
 But since I daie not hope that thou 
 Wouldst heed my love or hear my vow, 
 I'll mail my heart in triple steel, 
 Nor fear the shafts I will not feel. 
 
 / lUill not feel I O lying lips ! 
 Full well ye know my spirit sips 
 No sweets in life but such, as rise 
 From out the heaven of Katie's eyes ! 
 
 Look into this heart, O lying tongue ! 
 Thou knowest full well that it hath flung 
 Its last hope in the loving smile 
 Or angry frown of Katie Lyle ! 
 
 'Twere vain, thrice vain to take up arms 
 Against her aU-subduing charms ; 
 That proud heart never yet was bom 
 With strength to laugh their spell to scorn. 
 
 Then, Katie Lyle, dear Katie Lyle, 
 Thy rose-hued lips may wear that smile, 
 And still those clustef ing curls inay chase 
 Their laughing shadows o'er thy face. 
 
 My eyes shun not that dimpled cheek. 
 Where Love and Mirth play hide-and-seek ; 
 My heart still woos the wildering trance 
 Bom of thine eyes' electric glance. 
 
 As to his God the Brahmin kneels, — 
 With more of fervour than he feels, — 
 Here at thy feet I bend the knee. 
 Sweet Katie Lyle, and worship thee. 
 
 In tlie Poesque vein, this stanza, from a poem of a dozen or 
 so of stanzas, is full of strength : — 
 
 The Past ! where a merciless demon 
 
 Each moment adds woe to my woe. 
 And mocks at the wail of my spirit. 
 
 And the weight of it^, biurtjen of woe, 
 Adds gloom to the night of my spirit. 
 
 And moeks at the weight of my woe. 
 21 
 
242 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 IVfr. Hatcher's other style — the rollicking George-Lippard- 
 and-Walt-Whitman-mixed style — requires, to be fairly presented, 
 a longer extract than the present space permits. The title of 
 one of the best of this kind is A Poem {after the style of Warren, 
 and also immediately subsequent to three bottles of champagne), 
 by George Washington Bricks; and the poem is very like the 
 title. 
 
 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 
 
 For many years Mr. Hayne's fugitive poems have been seen, 
 from time to time, in the first-class periodicals, North and South, 
 principally the latter. He has contributed frequently to The 
 Southern Literary Messenger, of Richmond. He has edited, or 
 assisted in editing, The Southern Literary Gazette, a weekly, and 
 Russell's Magazine, a monthly, both of Charleston. 
 
 He has pubUshed three volumes : — 
 
 1. Poems. Boston, 1855. 
 
 2. Sonnets and other Poems. Charleston, 1857. 
 
 3. Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos, with Poems, lyrical, 
 miscellaneous, and dramatic. Boston, i860. 
 
 His first volume contains one long poem, — The Temptation of 
 Venus, a Monkish Legend. His third has Avolio, — a compara- 
 tively extended narrative poem, — as its leader. These two are 
 the only long — and they are not very long — poems that Mr. 
 Hayne has ventured upon ; and for the sake of his reputation as 
 a poet it is to be hoped that he will venture on no more of the 
 kind. These are by no means failures, as that term is usually 
 taken ; but in success are far below what he should do, can do, 
 and has already done. His narration of stories in verse is a httle 
 obscure and toilsome. He would better a,void them. 
 
 His Ode before the Carolina Art Association — a carefully- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 243 
 
 elaborated poem of nine pages— is a fine thing. Some think it 
 the best he has written. 
 
 Next in length are the miscellaneous poems of these volumes. 
 These contain the gems of Mr. Hayne's genius. There are 
 several that Tennysoii might have written without damage to his 
 reputation as the first artist among English poets. I shall pre- 
 sent The Village Beauty as illustrative of his style. It is hap- 
 pily conceived, and the versification is fine : — 
 
 The glowing tints of a tropic eve 
 
 Burn on her radiant cheek, 
 And we know that her voice is rich and low. 
 
 Though we never have heard her speak ; 
 So full are those gracious eyes of light. 
 
 That the blissful flood runs o'er. 
 And wherever her tranquil pathway tends* 
 
 A glory flits on before ! 
 
 Oh, very grand are the city belles. 
 
 Of a brilliant and stately mien. 
 As they walk the steps of the languid dance. 
 
 And flirt in the pauses between ; 
 But beneath the boughs of the hoary oak. 
 
 Where the minstrel fountains play, 
 I think that the artless village girl 
 
 Is sweeter by far than they. 
 
 Oh, very grand are the city belles. 
 
 But their hearts are worn away 
 By the keen-edged world, and their lives have lost 
 
 The beauty and mirth of May ; 
 They move where the sun and starry dews 
 
 Reign not ; they are haughty and fold. 
 And they do not shrink from the cursed mart . 
 
 Where faith is the slave of Gold. 
 
 But the starry dews and the genial sun 
 
 Have gladdened her guileless youth ; 
 And her brow is bright with the flush of hope, 
 
 Her soul with the seal of truth ; 
 
244 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Her feet are beautiful on the hills 
 
 As the steps of an Orient mom. 
 And Ruth was never more fair to see 
 
 In the midst of the autunm com. 
 
 Dear Effie ! give me thy loyal hand, 
 
 As soft and vparm as thy heart 
 And teH me again I may call thee mine. 
 
 When the winter storms depart ; 
 'Tis true that thou mak'st all seasons bright. 
 
 But it is not fitter than we 
 Should wed when the spring — thy sister — comes 
 
 To be a bridesmaid to thee? 
 
 The buds will blossom as bloom our hopes. 
 
 And the earth make glad replies 
 To the music that moves our inmost souls 
 
 With its marvellous harmonies ; 
 And between the nature that glows without 
 
 And the nature that thrills within 
 The deUcate morning of love shall dose. 
 
 And its bountiful noon begin ! 
 
 The hiatus and the subsequent change of location are admira- 
 bly well-timed, and tell very gracefully in the general effect. 
 The rhythm is well suited to the subject. This blending of iam- 
 bus and anapest is eminently musical when skillfully managed. 
 In this Mr. Hayne excels. 
 
 Versifiqation is purely an art. The twaddle about inspiration, 
 as applied to it, died under the pen of Poe, and was so utterly 
 stupid in itself that the only wonder is thai it had not perished a 
 century before. Mr. Hayne has devoted, be it said to his credit, 
 careful attention, as an artist, to the great masters of versification; 
 especially, we feel safe in assuming, has he studied Tennyson, 
 who has no superior in that subtle art. 
 
 The rhythm and melody of tlie following stanza are ex- 
 quisite : — 
 
LIVIN^G WRITERS OF THE SOUTM 245 
 
 Over her face, so tender and meek, 
 
 The light of a prophecy lies. 
 That hath silvered the red of the rose on her cheek. 
 
 And chastened the thought in her eyes. 
 
 And this, too, is dainty : — 
 
 And later still shall the churchyard flowers 
 
 Gleam nigh with a white increase ;- 
 And a bird outpour, by the old church towers, 
 
 A plaintive poem of peace. . 
 
 And this : — 
 
 Aiid the languid dirge of billows, 
 Lulls with opiate symphonies. 
 
 There is sojne^ing Epesque in the following verses : — 
 
 How the holy story, 
 Her deep heart's mystery. 
 Like a chastened glory, ' 
 
 Beautiful to see. 
 Shone forth, softly, faintly. 
 With a ra4iance saintly. 
 From each pensive feature — 
 Oh, divinest Nature, 
 
 Once bound up in me ! 
 
 There is a wail-like melo<^, that nothing short of the highest 
 art could evolve from the subject, in this, which is one of the 
 prettiest lyrics in these volumes : — 
 
 The winter winds may wildy rave. 
 
 Lost Edith, o'er thy place of rest; 
 But, love ! thou hast a holier grave 
 
 Deep in a faithful human breast. 
 
 21' 
 
246 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 There, the embalmer, Memory, bends. 
 Watching, with softly-breathed sighs. 
 
 The mystic light her genius lends 
 To fadeless cheeks, and tender eyes. 
 
 There, in an awful, calm serene. 
 
 Thy beauty keeps its saintly trace ; 
 The radiance of an angel mien, 
 
 The rapture of a heavenly grace. 
 
 And there, O gentkst Love ! remain. 
 No stormy passion round thee raves. 
 
 Till soul to soul, we meet again 
 Beyond this ghostly realm of graves. 
 
 I submit the foregoing as illustrative touches of Mr. Hayne's 
 style, and regard them as warranting, as well as detadied frag- 
 ments can do, my high estimate of his lyrics. 
 
 But Mr. Hayne plumes himself, I gather frohi his introduc- 
 tory essay in his second volume, upon his sonnets. He labours 
 with painstaking ingenuity to elevate the strait-laced sonnet to 
 a respectable place among the forms of poetic utterance. He 
 points to Howard, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Milton, and to 
 Wordswordi, the prince of sonneteers ; to Ghedino, Lazzarini, 
 Casa, Bembo, Menzoni, and to Petrarch, the father of sonnets. 
 This is all very well. These men have written sonnets — that 
 is not to be denied — but good sonnets, with the best of them, 
 have been in a minority preciously small. Mr. Hayne, how- 
 ever,- follows up his desperate cause with a yet bolder ground of 
 defence : " The sonnet addresses itself to the scholar." This is 
 intended to be conclusive on the question. The same, however, 
 is true of the syllogism, and of a demonstration in geometry ; 
 but it does not demonstrate that these also are favourable poetic 
 forms. After all, Mr. Hayne's difficulty lies in the necessity of 
 proof at all. If it were true, the world would not have required 
 the proof. A man who needs to be told that a lily is beautiful 
 will never see it, though the argument be strong as proofs of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 247 
 
 holy writ. It is so with the world about sonnets. Sonnets may- 
 be very ingenious things, very clever things, very scholarly things, 
 very funny things, if needs be ; but all these will never make 
 them very poetic things. My objection to the sonnet is not 
 that it is an artificial structure — all poetic forms must be so — 
 but that it is uniform, while poetic thought is not so. And the 
 thought that does not fit it becomes cramped as soon as put into 
 such a Procrustean bed. 
 
 Mr. Hayne has written sonnets very much as clever as any in 
 EngUsh.' I neither except Stoddard, who' has done well ; nor 
 Boker, whose success is marked ; nor even Wordsworth, the 
 Magnus Apollo of British sonneteers. Nor do I mean any very 
 great compliment to Mr. Hayne, in these comparisons. His 
 book will sustain my opinion. I give one,; on October, as a 
 specimen of tlae spirit he is capable of throwing into even a 
 sonnet : — 
 
 The passionate suimner's dead ! the sky's aglow 
 
 With roseate flushes of matured desire ; 
 The winds at eve are musical and low 
 
 As sweeping chords of a femenfing lyre, 
 
 Far up among the pillared clouds of fire, 
 Whose pomp in grand procession upward grows. 
 With gdrgeous blazonry of funereal shows. 
 
 To celebrate the summer's past renown. 
 
 Ah me ! how regally the heavens look down, 
 O'ershadowing beautifur autumnal woods, 
 
 And harvest-fields with hoarded increase brown, 
 And deep-toned majesty of golden floods, 
 
 That lift their solemn dirges to the slcy. 
 
 To SH'ell the purple pomp that floateth by. 
 
 Mir. Hayne has an intense love of Nature ; a rich imagination, 
 quick and bold ; limited power of narrative structure, and a true 
 sense of the music of words. His study of Tennyson has been in 
 the spirit of the true artist. In the glowing sensuousness of his 
 imagery one is sometimes reminded of Alexander Smith ; but he 
 
248 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 has a refinement and an art-finish that Smith could never have 
 attained. His poetry is alive with pent passion, glowing yet re- 
 pressed ; a tropical wealth of emotion; touched here and there 
 with a dash of quaintness or a flaw of affectation. He is fervent, 
 but sometimes feeble ; musical and dainty in phraseology ; full 
 of earnestness, tenderness, and delicacy. Over some of his ex- 
 quisite ideal poems there hangs a veil of mourning so vivid and 
 startling, that in the complex beauty of sorrow one is puzzled, 
 while charmed. 
 
 I have said that Mr. Hayne has an intense love of Nature. 
 This needs qualification. His love is intense ; but it is for the 
 grand and the picturesque that he loves Nature. He comes not 
 to her universal vitality with the affection of a simple heart. He 
 makes her useful in affording striking illustration and brilliant 
 imagery ; but he does not seem to clasp her to his bosom with 
 the fervid passionateness of a genuine child of Nature — of a 
 suffering human that sighs out his sorrows upon her bosom, and 
 finds a mediatorial love in her intimacy. Yet his love of Nature 
 is intense and beautiful. 
 
 His Ode to Sleep has been admired in Europe as well as 
 in America. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Hayne' s greatest fault, as an artist, is an affecta- 
 tion of quaint and dainty adjectives, upon which the dianges have 
 been already rung by Tennyson and T. B. Aldiich. These phrases 
 will afford illustration of the fault I refer to : " Gray fleetness," 
 " Starry sparkles of still bliss," " Innumerous grand imperial 
 phantoms resurrectionized," " Chamel doom," "Adoration of 
 benignant calm," "Troublous dreams," "The mazes of deep 
 speech," " The emerald igrasses," " The lush grasses," " A Poef s 
 purple mood," " A purple-vestured mood." 
 
 Seizing a fault, as if it were an excellence, of the older English 
 poets, Mr. Hayne indulges in tliis style of phrase : " O' th' nether 
 earth," " O' th' treacherous elements," " I' th' name of mercy," 
 "Virtue i' th' bud." This is piu-e affectation and poor En^isb. 
 It is confounding apocope with elision, and may have been ad- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 249 
 
 missible — may have been esteemed an excellence — in the days 
 of Shakspeare ; but as English now stands, it reminds one of the 
 courtiers of Alexander the Great, who carried their heads one- 
 sided, because the king had that deformity. 
 
 In Avolio and Other Poems are some dramatic sketches. 
 These are so spirited and well put that they make us regret that 
 the authca: has not devoted more of his time to this species of 
 composition. That inaptitude for ordonnance^ however, which 
 appears in his narrative poems may forbid his complete success 
 in the drama. 
 
 During the War of Secession Mr. Hayne suffered ill health; 
 still he wrote poems frequently for the newspapers. He raised 
 some spirited war cries, in verse. Among these, perhaps the 
 most noticeable, though far from the best, is his Black Flag. It 
 is very fierce, sanguinary in fact. Hear his refrain : — 
 
 Then up with the sable banner ! 
 
 Let it thrill to the War-Gpd's breath. 
 For we march to the watchword. — Vengeance ! 
 
 And we follow the captain — Death ! 
 
 The whole poem is in the same vein, — a style which is called 
 the blood-and-thunderous. Among soldiers in the field this 
 kind of song was known as humorous poetry. Another of Mr. 
 Hayne' s war-songs appeared in the Charleston Mercury, in 
 March, 1862, just after the Confederates had suffered some re- 
 verses. It is dated at Fort Sumter, and this stanza will illustrate 
 its spirit and style : — 
 
 Come ! rush from the mountains, the lowlands, the valleys, — 
 Rush on, like the avalanche freed from its spell, 
 
 And lash the base cohorts, who throng to enslave us. 
 With stripes that shall give them a foretaste of hell ! 
 
 The injudicious efforts of over-partial friends have done Mr. 
 Hayne's true merits injustice, in their trying to foist upon the 
 pubhc mind the idea that he is distinguished for classical attain- 
 
2SO LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 ments. A Northern weekly says, " His scholarship is evident 
 on every page ;" and a Southern daily says, " It will be readily 
 conceived that he must be singularly at home in handling a 
 classical subject." And, in fact, the choice of a Legend of 
 Cos, as a subject, makes a good occasion for such adventurous 
 compliments. The truth is, that Mr. Hayne is ?iof singularly at 
 home in the literatures or even the languages of Greece and 
 Rome; but he is singularly at home in the classic works of 
 English literature — back to, and including, the Ehzabethan age. 
 His study of these standards has been careful and fruitful. His 
 attainments herein are rare for one of his age ; and to overlook 
 such cultlire in the effort to make him out a scholar in the clas- 
 sics of Greece and Rome is rank injustice to his true merit. 
 Mr. Hajme's style shows carefiil and thorough study of the best 
 models of the Undefiled ; and in its vigour and spirit does honour 
 to his talents. His English is remarkably fine, owing so little as 
 it does to the dead languages. 
 
 Mr. Hayne was bom in 1831 ; educated in Charleston, South 
 Carolina, and has lived principally, if not exclusively, in that city. 
 He is married. 
 
 In person he is below medium in size. Has dark hair and 
 dark-hazel eyes. His style of conversation is impressive and 
 entertaining. He emphasizes words markedly. His whole 
 manner indicates the man of sensibiUty and culture. 
 
 His chirograph is striking. It is freely legible ; English in 
 general character, but more frononci and emphatic tiian most 
 English men write. It conveys an impression of rapid thinking 
 and vivid conception, with the same touch of manner that runs 
 through his writings. Enthusiasm, emphasis, a fervour that 
 exhausts itself just short of brilliant power, correct taste, an 
 ambition for effects, with want of perfect system, appear in the 
 specimens of his chirography that I have seen. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 251 
 
 HINTON ROWIN HELPER. 
 
 The title of The Impending Crisis of the South, and the name 
 of Hinton Rowan Helper, are linked together and known from 
 one end of the western continent to the other ; and the eastern 
 continent has read the book and heard of its author, through the 
 German. 
 
 Mr. Helper is the authorof The Impending Crisis of the South. 
 What else of him? 
 
 I allow himself to answer the question in his own way. 
 
 In the first chapter of his last work — Nojoque — Mr. Helper 
 says:— j^^;gi,.J^L^}:^2!:>...,...s£Mf'sm.^ ** 
 
 " What matters it that my father and mother, and brothers and 
 sisters, and myself, were all born and reared in the good old 
 North State ? Wiat matters it that my father, who never saw 
 and scarcely ever heard of a railroad, a steamboat, or a telegraph, 
 and who, without ever travelling more than twenty miles from 
 home, owned land and slaves, and lived and died, on the east- 
 ern bank of Bear Creek, a small tributary of the South Yadkin, 
 in the western part of North Carolina ? 
 
 " What matters it that my father's name (all except the surname) 
 was Daniel ? What matters it that my father, like certain other 
 men, — of some of whom the reader has doubtless heard, — found 
 a beautiful and bewitching blue-eyed damsel, fell in love with 
 her, and got married ? What matters it that my mother's maiden 
 name (all except the surname) was Sarah ? What matters it, 
 indeed, that my father wooed, won, and wedded Sarah Brown, — 
 an endeared and honoured name, which, in these degenerate days 
 of French folly, would be but too apt to lose, in some measure, at 
 least, the Anglo-Saxon simplicity of its consonants, and to glide 
 into the vowel-terminating appellation of Sally Browne ? 
 
 "What matters it that, at intervals, respectively, of a year, more 
 or less, jolly-faced Dame Nature, the great colonizer of the neigh- 
 bourhood, brought and placed under the guardianship of my 
 
2 52 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 good parents, seven children, five boys and two girls, all of whom, 
 except the youiiger daughter, were named by my father, and she 
 by my mother? What matters it that my parent's children's 
 names (all except the surname) are thus recorded in, a ponder- 
 ous old Family Bible, — an excellent compilation of ancient 
 writings, which, if a fact of this sort may be here stated; my 
 father's youngest, and homehest, and most .mischievous son, has 
 twice read regularly through, from Genesis to Revelation, in- 
 clusive, besides having perused some of -the finer poems thereof, 
 especially those by Job, David, and Solomin, at least three dozen 
 times ? ^ 
 
 '■'■Horace Hasten, born January 27, 1819. 
 
 "Henrietta Minerva, bom June 30, 1820. 
 
 "Hardie Hogan, bom March 21, 1822. 
 
 "Amanda Maria, born November 22, 1823. 
 
 "Hanson Pinkney, bom November 4, 1825. 
 
 "Hampton Lafayette, bom October 8, 1827. 
 
 "Hinton Mowan, bOra Decembei: 27, 1829. . 
 
 " Wliat matters it, if, in these names, there is something of an 
 alliterative ampleness of the aspirate H ? May a man not have 
 pet letters as well as pet pigs, pet pups, and pet parrots ? What 
 matters it that my gentle and revered mother pleased entirely 
 her own fancy in the nominal distinction of one of her own 
 children? Like some other ladies whom I have known, she 
 was determined to have her own way, — once at least ; she just 
 would, and she would, and she did; and there was an end of it ! 
 And so, contrary to my father's suggestions, my second sister 
 was not named Harriet, nor H)qDatia, nor Helen. 
 
 " What matters it that this alhterative characteristic of ray 
 father's mind was manifested even in the naming of his negroes, 
 — Judy, Jinsy, Joe, and Jack, — all of whom were as black as 
 jet, and as ink-like in colour as the juice of Japan? I dare say, 
 also, that my father's horses, on the one hand, and his dogs on 
 the other, — although I am not now quite certain how they were 
 called, — might have recognized tlieir names in words of such 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 253 
 
 affinity of frame and pronunciation as Manser, Merley, and Mox- 
 on ; Bender, Bouncer, and Bolton. In one case orily, can I 
 conceive it piossible that my father would have manifested a 
 desire to depart from his usual preference for alliterative appel- 
 lations. Had he been the Owner of apes, monkeys, or baboons, 
 I have no doubt it wOuld have been his pleasure to call them by 
 such gimcrack cognomens as Vallandigham, Foote, Wise, and 
 Buchanan. 
 
 " What matters it that my father died (somewhat suddertly, of 
 a severe and unrelievable attack of the mumps) in the fall of 
 1830, when his youngest son, who had then been in the world but 
 nine months, was still a close dinger to the breast, — a source of 
 sweet solace and sustenance, which his elder brothers banteringly 
 allege he did not desert until he was at least six years of age 1 
 
 '' What matters it that any of these things were as they were, 
 or are as they are ? Little significance, indeed, have any of the 
 intimations, or statements of facts, here advanced. In contrast 
 with public interests and requirements, mere personal consider- 
 ations are, or ought to be, of but very small moment. With 
 heraldry, pedigrees, and ancestry, I have, unlike John Chinaman, 
 nothing to do. Ask a mandarin of Shanghai, of Canton, or of 
 Pekin, to lay before you the tree or diagram of his genealogy, 
 and he will straightway prove to you, provided you will exercise 
 full faith in what he says, that the venerated founder of his family 
 was, tens of thousands of years before the days of Adam, a suc- 
 cessful fishmonger, an expert knife-grinder, or a distinguished 
 rag-picker, or something else equally honourable and aristo- 
 cratic. We have no such dncient reckonings in the United 
 States, and it is only by the aid of Pintoism and Munchausenism 
 that they can count so far back in Europe. 
 
 " As a plain American republican, possessed of a moderate 
 share of common sense, and very much like the generality of my 
 fellow-men (my white fellow-men), I was, and am, and shall be, — 
 and that's sufficient." 
 
 And then ? 
 
254 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The place of Mr. Helper's birth is Davie County, formerly^— 
 at the time of his birth — known as Rowan County. Under the 
 tutorship of the Rev. Baxter Clegg, at tlie Male Academy in 
 Mocksville, he received a plain English education. 
 
 He has been rather an extensive traveller. In his twenty-first 
 year, — in 185 r, I believe, — he went to California, by way of 
 Cape Horn and Valparaiso ; spent nearly three years on the 
 Pacific coast ; and returned to his native state by way of St. John 
 of the Soudi, Lake Nicaragua, and San Juan del Norte. 
 
 In 1855 he made his debut as an author. In a moment I 
 shall take up the subject of his publications. Just here I prefer 
 to continue the personal narrative. 
 
 In 1 86 1 he was appointed United States Consul to Buenos 
 Ayres, in the Argentine Republic, whither he repaired by way 
 of Pernanibuco. 
 
 In 1863, at Buenos Ayres, he married Miss Maria Louisa 
 Rodriguez, a young lady of pure Spanish descent, who had re- 
 ceived a five-years' education in one of the best French-English 
 schools in New- York City. 
 
 After more than five years of service as consul at Buenos Ayres, 
 after repeated applications to be relieved he positively refused 
 to hold the position longer, resigned it unconditionally, and came 
 home early in 1867. 
 
 He is to-day resident in the romantic village of Asheville, 
 North Carolina, among the Blue-Ridge Mountains. The gossip 
 of the newspapers is that he is about to establish a negro-extermi- 
 nation newspaper. 
 
 Mr. Helper's published works are : — 
 
 1. The Land of Gold, — a volume of three hundred pages, in 
 which the author describes some of his impressions and expe- 
 riences in our most westerly El Dorado. It was published in 
 Baltimore, 1855 ; and had a fair but not extraordinary success. 
 
 2. The Impending Crisis of the South, was pubhshed in 1857; 
 and up to the present time, — a space of, say, ten years, — more 
 than one hundred and forty thousand copies have been sold. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 255 
 
 The New York Weekly Tribune of the 4th July, 1857, contained 
 an eight-column review of this work, — the longest criticism, I am 
 informed, ever devoted to any book in a single issue of a'ny 
 American newspaper. The work was written against slavery, 
 and in the interests of the white race. Many inferred that' be- 
 cause it was against slavery and slaveholders, it must be in the 
 interests of the negro. This point is made with characteristic 
 force in his sequel, or pendant to this book, to be noticed next in ' 
 order. This volume was seized by the radical party and used, as 
 the phrase goes, " as a campaign document," by that party in its 
 advocacy of Mr. Lincoln's election, in i860. As a natural con- 
 sequence, Mr. Helper became as odious at the South as he was 
 famous at the North, — famous there, infamous here. But all this 
 is a matter of politics rather than of Hterature, though it is Strictly 
 biographical, in that it throws light upon die subsequent book by 
 the same author. 
 
 3. Nojoque ; a Question for a Continent, — a pendant to The 
 Impending Crisis of the South, — appeared in 1867. It is a 
 duodecimo of 479 pages, well indexed, published in New York 
 and London. Mr. Helper begins the preface of this book with 
 these intelligible words : " Were I to state here, frankly and 
 categorically, that the primary object of this work is to write the 
 negro out of America, and that the secondary object is to write 
 him (and manifold millions of other blacks and bi-colored 
 caitiffs, little better than himself,) out of existence, God's simple 
 truth would be told." That one sentence tells all that it is im- 
 portant to state here as characteristic of the work. The extract 
 I gave at the outset of this notice^ illustrates the author's style. 
 He handles everything without gloves; His views are icono- 
 clastic, and his spirit destructive. He praises and blames with- 
 out reserve and without measure. He treads upon toes without 
 begging pardon. There is, however, a manliness in this outspoken 
 and fearless advocacy, that entitles tl^e advocate to a measure 
 of respect, even from those who take issue with every position' 
 he fights for. 
 
256 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 4. The Negroes in Negroland; the Negroes in America ; and 
 Negroes Generally; also, the Several Races of White Men, 
 considered as the involuntary and predestined Supplanters of the 
 Black Races: a Compitoionj by Hinton Rowan Helpfer; a 
 Rational Republican. The title of this work gives its scope and 
 temper. It is anti-negro in every sense. The statements of 
 many travellers are given, under suitable headings, to show 
 exactly what the negro race is. The testimonies thus quoted 
 are those of the following travellers : Mungo Park, Denham, 
 Clapperton, Lander, Livingstone, Barth, Lichtenstein, Du 
 Chaillu, Caillie, Valdes:, Bruce, Baker, Speke, Diihcan, Wilson, 
 Mofifat, Reade, Richardson, Burton, Barrow, and several others. 
 Besides these, several American writers are quoted ; such as 
 John Adams, Daniel Webster, Horace Mann, Theodore' Parker, 
 Samuel George Morton, William Henry Seward, Henry Clay, 
 Thomas Hart Benton, Abraham Lincoln, Montgomery Blair, 
 and Josiah Clark Nott. But the most significant writer is 
 Thomas Jefferson, whose views are quoted upon the negro 
 race, as written subsequent to the Declaration of Independence. 
 The result aimed at — and, par parenthese, I may add, reached, 
 — is that the black race is inferior to the white, not only in colour, 
 but also in physique, in mind, and in morals. It is a neat duo- 
 decimo of 254 pages, published by Carieton, of New York, in the 
 summer of 1868. 
 
 Mr. Helper is engaged upon yet other works, no doubt cal- 
 culated to make their mark, as has everything he has thus far 
 written ; excepting, perhaps, his itinerary in the far west, which 
 needed an occasion to become a sensation. 
 
 Mr. Helper's chirograph is neat, legible, and almost ornate. 
 It indicates great persistence and coherency of purpose; some 
 fondness for applause, with more of the absoluteness of Crom- 
 well in it than is often found in the chirographs of civilians. 
 It has the fatality, without the angular heartlessness of Stone- 
 wall Jackson's handwriting; but there is as little compromise 
 in it. And that is saying a great deal for it. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF TffE SOUTH. 257 
 
 DANIEL H. HILL. 
 
 General Hii2L is universally known as an officer in the 
 Confederate Army ; and since the war he has kept up the con- 
 test pretty effectively as editor of The Land We Love, a monthly 
 literary magazine published at Chatlotte, North Carolina. As 
 he was a soldier unyielding in the field, so is he uncompromising 
 at his desk, when he is dealing with fanaticism or radicahsm. 
 He is of the Old Roman style. His magazine, I am advised, is 
 the most successful one ever issued in- the South. 
 
 As an author, General Hill has produced these works : — 
 
 1. Moses. • - 
 
 2. Algebra. 
 
 3. Sermons on the Mount of the Crucifixion. Issued by Martin 
 & Co., Philadelphia. 
 
 4. Essays, from ih&' Southern Presiyterian Review. 
 
 5. Essays, from the {Quarterly Review. 
 
 He was, before the war, the Professor of Mathematics in 
 Davidson College, which position he resigned to establish a 
 military school at Charlotte. He is a native, of South Carolina. 
 
 One who knows General Hill personally, wrote the following 
 graphic sketch oi Yds personnel .■ — 
 
 " Fancy a man in whom the griin determination of a veteran 
 warrior is united to a gentle tenderness of manner, which would 
 not be inappropriate to the most womanly of women. Light up 
 his face with such a smile as always reminds one of soft moon- 
 light falling on a common ; aflSx a pair of eyes that possess the 
 most indisputably honest and kindly expression; animate him 
 with a mind, clear, deep, and comprehensive, and imbued with a 
 humour as rich as it is deep and effective ; infuse man and mind 
 with a soul which, in its lofty views, compels subordination of the 
 material to the spiritual, and holds a supreme trust in the wisdom 
 and goodness of the Almighty,^is zealous in the discharge of 
 
 22* 
 
2S8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 duty, and looks with scorn on all that is mean and sinful. Add 
 to all these a courage which is, indomitable, and a love of truth 
 and honour which is sublime, and you have the earthly embodi- 
 ment of D. H. Hill." 
 
 In the army I knew General Hill by reputation, as an austere 
 man, eccentric, having no piercy upon skulkers and deadheads 
 generally, a good fighter, an^.a writer of pointed endorsements 
 and telling orders. He entered the army as a Colonel, and came 
 out of it a Lieutenant-General. That fact gives a whole biogra- 
 phy in itself. 
 
 THEO. H. HILL. 
 
 TheophIlus H. Hill was born on Monday, the 31st of 
 October, 1836, near Raleigh, N. C. He received a fair aca^ 
 demic education ; is a lawyer by professiofn, practicing in Raleigh, 
 where he at one time edited The Spirit of the Age. Is married. 
 
 He -wrote verses very early in life. Has always written under 
 impulse, — what is popularly known as inspiration, — irregularly, 
 with no system or ultimate end in view. Has written, I am 
 informed, a good deal in prose ; but have seen very little of this. 
 It is almost exclusively as a poet that I have known him. Early 
 in the present year, he announced his purpose of collecting and 
 editing a volume of North Carolina poetry. 
 
 A small volume of Mr. Hill's poems, entitled Hesperand Other 
 Poems, appeared in i86i, and was, I believe, the first book pub» 
 lished in the Southern Confederacy. A second edition of this 
 volume appeared in 1863. It met the fate of all books, in the 
 defjartment of literature proper, published at that time. It was a 
 collection of his early poems, full of fire, promise, haste, and 
 crudeness. I find in most of the poems in this little volume, some 
 distinct evidences of genius ; and yet, there is not a single one 
 that impresses me as being a full expression of what the author evi- 
 dently has in him. A ■ want of elaboration — of finish — appears 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 259 
 
 everywhere, and mars the happiest conceptions. No one poem 
 stands out as a finished work. The poet neglected Horace's 
 injunction to turn i!a& stylus often and again — sxpe iterumque 
 — and the result follows, of necessity. 
 
 These are my impressions of Hesper and Other Poems. In 
 consideration for the author, however, I- take pleasure in 
 quoting a different opinion, from a high source. The Rev. Dr. 
 Craven says of one of tie poems in this volume : " The Song of 
 the Butterfly is one of the finest poems of its kind in English 
 literature." This is very high praise; and I quote the Song 
 entire, to illustrate the reveifgnd critic's opinion, and as a fair 
 specimen of the stylq of th? poet. It is divided into four 
 stanzas: — 
 
 I. 
 Who is merrier than I ? 
 Quoth the golden Butterfly. 
 In the shining court of May, 
 Whose apparel half so gay? 
 I reflect each sparkling hue 
 Of her gaudy retinue. 
 I have kissed the Lily' s cheek, 
 I have played at "hide and seek," 
 Blushing Violet, with youl 
 Who is merrier than I ?- 
 Quoth the golden Butterfly. 
 
 I, hive flirted, too, with thee, 
 Beautiful Anemone ! 
 And the blue-eyfed Pimpernel, 
 Is superlatively blest, 
 ShoulfH for. a moment rest, 
 Down in yonder grassy dell. 
 Little does she dre^m that I 
 From her soft caresses fly, 
 But to breathe the sweet perfume 
 Of the pale Magnolia bloom ; 
 Or to spend a listless hour 
 
z6o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 In the cool secluded bowa; 
 Of the pining Passion-flower ! j 
 Blither wooer who than I ? 
 Quoth the gaudy Butterfly. 
 
 When the shades of evening fall. 
 Like the foldings of a pall, — 
 When the dew is on the flowers. 
 And the mute unconscious iiovirs 
 , Still pursue tlieir noiseless flight 
 Through the dreamy reahn of night. 
 In the shut or open rose 
 Ah, how sweetly I repose ! 
 Zephyrs, freighted with perfume. 
 Gently rock my cradle-bloom. 
 Myriads of fire-flies 
 From the dewy leaves arise. 
 And Diana's starry train. 
 Sweetly scintiUant again. 
 Never steep while I repose 
 On the petals of the rose. 
 Sweeter couch hath who than I ? 
 Quoth the brilliant. Butterfly. 
 
 Life is but a summer day, 
 Gliding languidly away ; 
 Winter comes, alas ! too soon, — 
 Would it were forever June 1 
 Yet though brief my flight may be, ' 
 Fun and frolic stil for me I 
 When, the summer leaves and flowers. 
 Now so beautiful and gay, 
 In the cold autumnal showers. 
 Droop and fade and pine away^ 
 Who would not prefer to die? 
 What were life to sttch as I? 
 Quoth the flaunting Butterfly, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 261 
 
 This is all pretty; so pretty, indeed, tliat one regrets to find 
 evidences of carelessness. The Butterfly, in the first stanza, 
 addressing the Violet, says, "with yoii";"and in the second 
 stanza, addressing the Anemone, says, "with thee." This is- too 
 high a price for a rhyme. , 
 
 Since the date of Hespvr and Other P<Kfns, Mr. Hill has 
 written some of his best poems ; and in this fact lie the clearest 
 hopes of his future success. Among these latter poems are 
 Narcissus, A Gangese Dream, The Pit and Pendulum, and 
 Sunset. 
 
 Narcissus is an allegorical rendering of tlie familiar legend of 
 Narcissus and Echo. The melody of verse is very fine^ and we 
 derive a lively pleasure from the entire poem. It is too long to 
 give entire ; and is so constructed that parts of it would give but 
 an imperfect idea of the really fine poem it is, except as to the 
 rhythmic melody in which the legend here flqats. 
 
 I shall give a few selections from other poems in order 
 to show the style of our author, and the character of his 
 genius. 
 
 This extract from Violets, is full of happy hits of genuine fancy ; 
 and the melodious vei'sification is well suited to the theme : — 
 
 In unfrequented places, 
 
 Where sunbeams cannot peep, — 
 Where Echo's faintest echo 
 
 Is lying fast aslqep, — 
 These timid woodland graces 
 
 From dewy leaves arise, 
 Unveil their blushing faces, 
 
 Uplift their beaming eyes, 
 Less fearful in seclusion, 
 Of impudent intrusion. 
 
 Or surprise; 
 Yet each of these recluses 
 While budding into Uoom, 
 Unconsciously diffuses 
 Sweet peirfujne; 
 
262 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 And, ere tliey seem aware, 
 The censers which they bear 
 Reveal unto the air 
 
 Where they dwell; 
 And the breezes, as they Blow, 
 
 To and fro, 
 In sweetest odonr tell 
 Of dingle and of dell. 
 As yet unshone upon 
 
 By the sun ; 
 • They guide our eager feet 
 To the shadowy retreat 
 
 Of the Nun; 
 All who love to stand 
 Awhile on holy land. 
 Who feel assured again, 
 So long as these rema,in, 
 That innocence on earth. 
 Yet loiters, loth to fly 
 To purer realms on high. 
 Vaunts not her heavenly birth. 
 Nor publishes her worth 
 
 To gaze of mortal eye. 
 But waits to drop in death. 
 
 The masque, — the dark disguise. 
 When with her parting breath, 
 
 A radiant seraph flies. 
 
 Forty-two verses in one sentence msiy be more than most 
 voices can compass readily. Where the verses are so short and 
 so much depends upon rhyme, it is unpleasant to find such 
 licences as again and remain ; though there are just half a dozen 
 other instances in this little volume in which the same pronun- 
 ciation of again is forced upon us. 
 
 I do not deny the poet the privilege of resorting to allowable 
 rhymes; but I object when the privilege is indulged in too 
 freely. To accept a privilege of this kind is to acknowledge a 
 want of art or to exhibit a deal of carelessness, both of which are 
 reprehensible things in the artist. One concedes to an orator the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 263 
 
 right, — the privilege, that is to say, — of recalling a careless word, 
 and substituting a better, at once ; but if he repeat the resort, 
 times and again, one feels that, while he still may do so, he still 
 must lose power as an artist. It is merely his misfortune. So it is 
 with the poet who is forced by any circumstance whatever to re- 
 sort to allowable rhymes, exceptional usages, poetical privileges, 
 or any other licence in art. It is his misfortune ; and the oftener 
 he does so, the greater his loss. It follows, of course, tliat a 
 great genius can afford these sacrifices better than others ; but 
 without them, even great geniuses would appear to far greater 
 advantage. 
 
 This stanza, from Taking a Snooze, is slumberous, and very 
 musical : — 
 
 The drowsy hum of the murmuring bees. 
 
 Hovering over the lavender-trees, 
 
 Steals through half-shut lattices; 
 
 As awake or asleep — I scarce know which — 
 
 I lazily loll near a vrindow niche. 
 
 Whose gossamer ciurtains are softly stirred 
 
 By the gauzy wings of a humming-liird. 
 
 And this closing scene of the same is exquisite : — 
 
 All things are hazy, and dreamy, and dim, 
 
 The flies in lazier dicles swim ; 
 
 On slumberous wings — on muffled feet 
 
 Imaginary sounds retreat ; 
 
 And the clouds — Elysian isles that lie 
 
 In the bright blue sea of summer sky — 
 
 Fade out before my dosing eye. 
 
 This passage is as graphic as Tennyson's famous simile, and 
 in that respect equal to it. I beg leave to quote this simile of 
 Tennyson, which Edgar Poe has pronounced the best in the 
 English language, or something to that effect. The Laureate 
 says : — 
 
264 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 
 
 Ah, sad and strange, as in dark summer dawns 
 
 The earliest pipe, of half-awakgned birds 
 
 To dying ear's, when, imto dying eyes 
 
 The casenleht Slbwly grows a glimmering ^uire ; 
 
 So sad, so strange, the days tlmt are no more. 
 
 The following four stanzas from Mr. Hill's volume, are real 
 poetry, of which the heart-melodyi is jarred in the subsequent 
 ones, which we do not quote : ^- 
 
 Star of my soul ! I saw thee rise 
 
 In trembling beauty o'er a sea, 
 A silent sea — the past — that lies 
 
 Asleep in Memory. 
 
 My spirit caught the hallowed beams 
 
 That fell on the enchanted air ; 
 An unseen seraph in my dreams 
 
 Sealed thy bright image there. 
 
 Around me fell a golden glow 
 
 That flushed the amaranthine flowers. 
 
 Whose cen.sers, swinging to and fro. 
 Perfumed the midnight hours. 
 
 For Hope, who long on wanton wing. 
 
 Coquetted coyly with Desire, 
 Now deigned to robe the meanest thing 
 
 In beautifiil attire. 
 
 I remember no touch, in all misanthrope-poetry, to surpass 
 this drop of bitter-sweet : — 
 
 Dawn brings no day, and Spring no bloom ; 
 
 Earth seems a sad Sahara ; 
 Till Hope returning, gilds the gloom 
 
 And leads to — swells of Marah ! 
 
 Mr. Hill appears to have studied Edgar Poe very dioroughly, 
 and with advantage, but occasionally there appear glimpses 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 265 
 
 of that prince of Americap geniuses, and these glimpses I object 
 to. There is, in a great number of tliese poems, a certain sud- 
 denness in the evolution of the leading idea — a partial sacrifice 
 of simplicity for startling effect — that is peculiarly Poesque. 
 We find also a suggestion of tlie same poet in these heavy 
 parentheses ; as, in t^e opening sentence of Hora Haley oncB. 
 Again : I have always felt surprise that Poe should use, as he 
 does more than once, the quaint preposition /riJOT out. Follow- 
 ing the same fancy, Mr. Hill says : — 
 
 From out his hazard eyes . . . 
 From out the dusk arise . . 
 From out those treacherous seas. 
 
 This petting a word or phrase, whether it is Poesque or not, is 
 objectionable. Still further ; in such phrases as, — 
 
 Through the enchanted air . . . 
 Glimpse of an enchanted isle . . . 
 Enchanted realms of dreams . . . 
 What sweet nepenthe . . . 
 Through my lattice streaming . . . 
 Their silvery, silken sails . . . 
 
 and so fortli, the admirer of Poe will feel that there is something 
 familiar to him. 
 
 All that I complain of in these remarks is, that Mr. Hill has 
 too indolently — passively,' as it were — adopted expressions 
 and forms of utterance that arise in his mind, without exerting 
 that mind enough about liiem to clearly distinguish between 
 memory and impulse. This neglect may arise from a too 
 reposing confidence in self, and a consequent disregard of the 
 opinions of others; and can be corrected — I beUeve only — by 
 severe and persistent pen-labour. 
 
 There are several other passages in these poems, here and 
 there, that remind one of something that he has read, heard, or 
 seen before. For example, when Mr. Hill says, — 
 
 Fairest flowers soonest die, 
 23 
 
266 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 he uses a commonplace that several poets have used before 
 him ; and which Moore has made the most of. 
 Again, when Mr. Hill says, — 
 
 Then, sweet "Phantom of delight," 
 
 Thou mayst wing thy wanton flight, 
 
 Bidding me "Good Night !" "Good Night !" . 
 
 If that night — Good night can be 
 
 When I bid adieu to thee ! 
 
 one naturally recalls the Good Night that kisses made so su- 
 premely Good for Anacreon Moore ! 
 
 Once more, when one finds Mr. Hill singing, — 
 
 To my spirit thou dost seem 
 Like a sweet thought in a dream, 
 
 one can not well fail to recall " that most exquisite pant of the 
 very soul of passion," Shelley's Lines to an Indian Air, which 
 enjoys the distinction of having been pronounced " the most 
 perfect thing ever, written," in which occur these verses : — 
 
 The wandering Eurs, they faint 
 On the dark, the silent stream ; 
 The champak odours fail, 
 Lilce sweet thoughts in a dream. 
 
 Again, once more, and' — not to grow tedious — finally, when 
 we read in Mr. Hill's Narcissus about the 
 
 Forehead fairer than the sun 
 E'er before had shone upon, 
 
 every school-girl will remember Annie Laurie, of whom tlie 
 legend is,— 
 
 Her face it is the fairest 
 That e'er the sun shone on. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 267 
 
 Upon the whole, it appears to me that Mr. Hill has given 
 evidence of genius, but that he has thus far been too careless 
 and thoughtless of the gift he possesses, — too much wed to the 
 old and long-ago-exploded theory about the inspiration of verse, 
 — too ready to await the impulse of inspiration rather than to 
 go to work like an artist to determine and develop his genius. 
 The old theory of inspiration taking the place of art-culture is 
 all bosh; and unless Mr. Hill relieve his mind 'entirely of it^ his 
 rank as a poet will unquestionably stand as it is. 
 
 In most that Mr. Hill has written there is a touch of sadness ; 
 and in too much that he has written is a tone of despair and 
 bitterness towards life, Something of the Poesque-Byronic misan- 
 thropy, that has so much romance and so little health in it. 
 
 HENRY WASHINGTON HILLIARD. 
 
 Mr. HiLLiARD is more noted for his versatility than for his 
 thoroughness. He has been a lawyer, a professor, a legislator, 
 a Cliargi d' affair es., a congressman, a' Methodist prea-cher, and 
 a novelist. 
 
 He was born in Cumberlatid County, North Carolina, on Mon- 
 day, the 8th of August, 1808. During his infancy his father's 
 family moved to Columbia, South Carolina ; and he graduated 
 in the State College at that place, at the age of eighteen. At 
 the age of twenty-one he was admitted to the bar, and devoted 
 two years to that profession in Athens, Georgia. At that period 
 — 1 83 1 — he was elected professor in the University of Georgia, 
 and held the position for three years. In 1838 he was elected 
 to the Georgia legislature. Three years later he entered the 
 field of diplomacy as Charge d'affaires to Belgium, where he 
 resided two years. From 1845 until 1851 he was a representa- 
 tive from Georgia in the Congress of the United States. He 
 
268 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 was subsequently a Methodist Preacher, which profession he 
 followed, with varied fortunes, for several years. * 
 His Uterary productions are: — 
 
 1. Speeches and Addresses. An octavo, published in New 
 York, in 1855. The main portion of this volume consists of his 
 speeches delivered in Washington while in Congress ; while the 
 remainder are some literary addresses on various occasions. 
 
 2. De Vane; a Story of Plebeians and Patricians. A duode- 
 cimo of two sizable volumes. Issued early in 1866, from a 
 New York press. There was an effort made to get this out early 
 in the war, perhaps in 186 1 ; but the war delayed it. The design 
 of the book seems to be a defence — too much in the form of an 
 apology, to suit the truer sensibilities of his Methodist friends — 
 of the Methodist Church. A personal friend of the author says 
 of the book : — 
 
 "The plot lacks ingenuity in its conception, and the style is, 
 upon the whole, somewhat inflated. But the sentiments are 
 pure and heavenly, and the discussions of literature and, art ex- 
 hibit the highest evidence of scholarship, and a ready apprecia- 
 tion of the true, the beautiful, and the good." .; 
 
 I regard the opinion as tinged in the highest degreeiwith.the 
 roseate tints of personal partiality. ;, 
 
 JAMES P. HOLCOMBE. 
 
 Hon. James P. Holcombe was at one time before the war 
 Professor of Civil, Constitutional, and International Law, in the 
 University of Virginia, his alma mater. He is a native of Lynch- 
 burg, Virginia; and was born in 1820. His education, after 
 its academical stage, was receivied partly at Yale College, and 
 partly at the University of Virginia. 1 
 
 His published works are : — 
 
 I. Selection of Leading Cases upon Commercial Law, decided 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 269 
 
 ly the Supreme Court of the United States. An octavo, 1847. 
 New York. 
 
 2. Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, from its Organization to the Present Time. Octavo, 1848. 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 3. The Merchant's Book of Reference for Debtor and Creditor, 
 in the United States and Canada. Octavo, 1848. New York. 
 
 4. An Address before the Alumni of the University of Virginia. 
 Octavo, 1853. Richmond. 
 
 ■ 5; An Address before the State Agricultural Society. Octavo, 
 1858. Richmond. 
 
 6. Litirahire in Letters. Duodecimo, 1868. New York. This 
 is a compilation of the famous letters of the world, mostly 
 English, however, arranged under classified heads. 
 
 WILLIAM H. HOLCOMBE, M.D. 
 
 Among the really progressive minds of the present day. Dr. 
 Holcombe stands prominent. He is a native of Virginia, borii 
 at Lynchburg, in 1825; received- his literary education at 
 Washington College in his native state, and his medical educa- 
 tion at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. After 
 graduation in medicine he practiced that profession for a number 
 of years in conjunction with his father in Lynchburg. In 1850 
 he moved to Cincinnati ; afterwards to the interior of the state 
 of Louisiana ; and finally, to the city of New Orleans, where he 
 now lives. 
 
 In 1852 Dr. Holcombe gave up the practice of Allopathy in 
 which he had . been educated, and became a Homoeopath. 
 This transition frorh the one system to the other is graphically 
 set forth and ably defended in a pamphlet published by him 
 during 1867, entitled How I Became a Homoeopath. He 
 thus humorously introduces the subject and himself to his 
 readers : — 
 
 23* 
 
2 70 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " I am the son of a doctor. I was born and, bred in a medi- 
 cal atmosphere. My father's office was the favourite; place, for 
 my games, when a little boy, and for my reading apd .study, when 
 a youth. The imposing shelves of im.posing. volumes, the« big 
 jars of hideous specimens preserved in alcohol, tl^e, pervading 
 odours of paregoric and lavender, the bloodyJooking map of the 
 great sympathetic, on tlie wall,,the long white skeleton grinning 
 in thex:losetj and the mysterious box containing th? 4etached 
 bones of a baby's skull, made a strong impression on my childish 
 imagination. The old brown saddlebags, -with theiy incredible 
 stores of vials and packages and pill-boxes, exci,(;edi.my special 
 admiration. Physicians were, in my opinion, the wisest and 
 greatest and best of mankind- I saw tine whole faculty, through 
 the venerated form and character of my good fatjier. We- differ 
 as much from our own selves at different times, as we do from 
 each other. I have lived to question and scout the old oracles, 
 to abandon tlie ' intensely respectable ' path of routine, to dis- 
 cover in the old browii saddle-bags a Pandora's box of evils, and 
 tO: see how much ignorance and mischief are sometimes con- 
 cealed and consecrated by a rqedical diploma!" 
 
 That is to say, after years of study, patient experimeat,, cau- 
 tious observation, aided by an acute and logical intellect, he saw 
 reason to give up the dogmas of tlie old school of medicine, 
 towards which all his prejudices and professional interests in- 
 clined him, and to adopt what he had proven to be tryth, instead. 
 When the conviction reached him, he honestly nsade. tiie change, 
 fearless of consequences, facing with manly firmness the scorn 
 of many whose charlatanry his investigations had driven to the 
 wall, and whose sneers he had learned to despise. 
 
 Equally independent, though in the face of far less bitter 
 antagonism, was his hearty adoption of the beautiful truths of 
 Swedenborg's divjne philosophy, theosophy, and theology. 
 
 I have made these referenpes to the opinions and professional 
 tenets of our autlior, because they enter so intimately into the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 271 
 
 very spirit and body of all that he has produced as a litterateur; 
 as will appear in the list of his books given below. 
 
 Dr. Holcombe has written extensively for the periodical press. 
 In The New Church Herald have appeared the principal of his 
 Swedenborgian discussions. In The North American Journal of 
 Homaopathy — of which he was for some years co-editor — have 
 appeared the chief of his essays in medicine. His literary essays 
 and poems have been published mainly in The Knickerbocker 
 Magazine and The Southern Literary Messenger^ He has issued, 
 en brochure, A Separate Nationality, or the Africanization of the 
 South, which is political ; Suggestions, as to the Spiritual Phi- 
 losophy of African Slavery, which is theo-philosophical ; Human 
 Progress Since the Last Judgment, which is Swedenborgian ; and 
 What is Homceopathy?. and Hew I Became a Homceopath, men- 
 tioned above, which' are medical. 
 
 As a poet, Dr. Holcombe deals largely in the recondite 
 beauties of correspondence — a doctrine unfortunately not 
 popularly understood;' but one which, I venture the opinion 
 in perfect confidence, no sane mind ever clearly understood 
 without accepting as divine truth. It is, in character and origin, 
 Swedenborgian ; and an exhaustive definition of it must amount 
 to a demonstration of the proposition already announced by 
 Euch men as Cousin and Emerson, that the True and the Beau- 
 tiful are one. This great truth pervades most of the poetry that 
 Dr. Holcombe has published. Other doctrines of the New 
 Church appear also ; but that of correspondence is the prevail- 
 ing one. 
 
 As, an example of, his verse-style I give The Picture, a poem 
 graceful, correspondential, and in some sort German in its 
 tone : — 
 
 I saw a lovely picture 
 
 In a gjillery of art, 
 ■Which charmed me like an April rose. 
 
 And I wear it jn my heart ; 
 
2 72 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Not liice the rose of gardens, 
 Which withers soon away, 
 '■-'^ But planted in my heart of hearts. 
 
 It never shall decay. 
 
 It was a blooming maiden. 
 
 So beautiful and pure, 
 'Twas mirrored from an angel's face 
 
 In a vision, I am sure. 
 A dove of heavenly plumage 
 
 Upon her boSom lay ; 
 I saw the spirit of the dove 
 
 Around her lips at play. 
 
 I longed to see the painter, 
 
 I longed to grasp his hand) — 
 I know there is a common ground 
 
 Whereon we two could stand. 
 I know he has been happy. 
 
 And his heart is full of love, 
 Or he never could have imaged forth 
 
 That maiden and her dove. 
 
 For as the dove resembles 
 
 The virgin- s spotless thought. 
 So is this picture lilce the soul 
 
 From which it was outwrought ; 
 And of that glorious spirit 
 
 I catch a radiant partj 
 Which I have called a rose, and plant 
 
 Forever in my heart. 
 
 As poets in this peculiar field, Dr. Holcombe and Judge 
 Requier stand together. They constitute the entire corps ; and are 
 both honourable representatives of the art, and of the teaching, 
 too. 
 
 The following are Dr. Holcombe's bopk-wbrks : — 
 I. The Scient^c Bails of HoiTKeopatky.' An octodecimo of 
 304 pages, published in 1855, in Cincinnati. This was the 
 author's first book-anouncement' of his new-school doctrines in 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 273 
 
 medicine ; and is close and searching in its logic, lucid in style, 
 and out-and-out Homoeopathic. 
 
 2. Yellow Fever and its Homoeopathic Treatment. An octavo 
 of eighty pages. New York, 1856. 
 
 3. Poems. A handsome volume, beautifully printed by the 
 Mason Brothers, New York, of 326 pages, and appeared in i860, 
 upon the eve of grand political events that swallowed up every- 
 thing else except Radicalism and Lincolnism, and thus left the 
 Poems no chance for popular attention, much less for popular 
 favour. The literary work was deluged by the waves of politi- 
 cal madness. The author proposes to republish a collection of 
 his poems in a short time. 
 
 4. Our Children in Heaven: An argumentative work, rmfold- 
 ing the Swedenborgian idea of the Life after Death. This 
 volume appeared early in 1868. A contemporary book-notice 
 says of it : — 
 
 "A subject more widely interesting than liiat treated of in this 
 book can scarcely be found. The question, ' What becomes of 
 little children when they die ? ' is anxiously asked, every day, by 
 an innumerable multitude of parents ; and strangely enough, it is 
 among Christians, except where the light of the New Dispensa- 
 tion has dawned, that the least satisfactory answer is made to it. 
 The heathen or Mahommedan mother is comforted by the belief 
 that her departed darling is in a heaven of some kind, under the 
 care of good angels ; but the Christian, in like circumstances, has 
 nothing to rest upon but vague guesses and uncertain probabili- 
 ties. The collected wisdom of the whole clergy of the Old 
 School Presbyterian body, could affirm no more, in regard to 
 this all-important point, than that the preponderance of their 
 opinions was in favour of the final salvation of the little ones, but 
 as to what become of them after death, where they were, and 
 how long it would be before they would enter upon their happi- 
 ness, they were silent. A similar ignorance is shown by the 
 teachers of other denominations. They really do not believe in 
 a future life, a^d when they are confronted with the quivering 
 
2 74 LIVING WRITBRS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 agony of a bereaved father or motlier, they have nothing to say. 
 But the New Church assumes the task they thus acknowledge 
 their inabihty to perform, and answers the tearful questionings 
 of the mourner ; and every one who assists in rnaking known its 
 revelations on the subject, performs a service to afflicted human- 
 ity deserving of its warmest gratitude. This is what Dr. Hol- 
 combe has done, and we are happy to say, he has done it well. 
 He evidently possesses, first of all, that important element of 
 success, a community of suffering with those whom he addresses, 
 and a practical understanding of their sorrows. It needs, no 
 averment, in explicit terms, to tell us, after reading his opening 
 chapter, that he has himself felt the need of the truths he presents, 
 and received consolation from them. His words come, not from 
 cold intellectual knowledge, but from a conviction which goes to 
 the heart of otlaers as it springs from his own, — warm, living, and 
 impressive. This same element, too, gives to the book, through- 
 out, a glow of poetic beauty which is charming as a mere matter 
 of external style, and must win for it a favourable attention, even 
 among those who take no special interest in the ideas it conveys. 
 
 "The picture of a household in which a child lies sick, and of 
 the scenes attending the final separation of its spirit from the body, 
 is described in graphic language, and with an eloquence which we 
 have seldom seen surpassed. So, likewise, the occupations of the 
 little ones in the other world are portrayed with an air of tnithful- 
 ness which carries its own evidence with it. 
 
 "The work opens, as we have said, with the description of the 
 sickness and death of a child, and the grief of its parents, while, 
 in answer to their anxious inquires in regard to the fate of their 
 darling, they are referred to the teachings of Swedenborg for light. 
 Tliis avowal, at tlie outset, of the source from whence the author 
 derives his information, we regard as one of the most excellent 
 features of the book. It directs the attention of those whose 
 desire to know more respecting the New Church may be awak- 
 ened by its perusal, to the fountain head, and thus does a greater 
 good than merely to convey the limited amount of instruction 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 275 
 
 contained in its pages. Then follows. a statemjent of the true 
 doctrine of the resurrection of the spiritual body, of the nearness 
 of heaven, of the education of infants there, their occupations, 
 and many other equally interesting matters, which are presented 
 in an attractive and intelligible manner, and can not fail; as it 
 seems to us, to satisfy every one who will candidly consider the 
 subject. In conclusion, the question of the Lord's permission 
 of evil and suifering is discussed, and many valuable suggestions 
 made respecting it. Altogether the book is a very satisfactory 
 one, and the Philadelphia New Church Publishing Association, 
 under whose auspices, we are informed, it is issued,, deserve 
 the thanks of their brethren for bringing it before tlie public." 
 
 5. 77/1? Sexes. A more charming book, if possible, than the 
 preceding. 1869. 
 
 JOHN SAUNDERS HOLT. 
 
 Colonel Holt is a native of Mobile, Alabama, where he was 
 born on the sth of December, 1826, the eldest of ten childi'en. 
 His father. Dr. David Holt, is a native of Bedford County, Vir- 
 ginia ; and his mother — nie Miss Julia White — was of Virginian 
 family, but bom in Mississippi. Soon after the birth of the sub- 
 ject of this sketch, his father moved liis family from Mobile to 
 the town of Woodville, Mississippi, where he still lives. John 
 Saunders was educated principally in N'cw Orleans, but went one 
 year to Centre College, at Danville, Kentucky. In 1846 he 
 went to Mexico, a private in Colonel Jeff. Davis's regiment — 
 the First Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers — and remained 
 in that country several months after the^^irmy was withdrawn. 
 He received the commendations of his officers for his conduct 
 in the Battle of Buena Vista. He studied law in Woodville, and 
 received his licence to practice upon the day of attatJifisgfjhis 
 majority. In 185 1 he moved to New Orleans and practiced 
 
2 76 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 law there until 1,857, when he married and moved back to Mis- 
 sissippi. The next year he served one term ill the legislature. 
 He entered the War of Secession as a First Lieutenant of Artil- 
 lery; and served faithfully throughout the war,' during which 
 he was for fifteen months a prisoner of War at Camp Morton, 
 Indiana, and at Fort Delaware. He was specially exchanged 
 during the summer of 1864, and served in the field again from 
 that time until die surrender at Appomattox Court-Hduse, at 
 which he was present. Just before the close of the war he 
 received an appointment as Judge of a Military Court, with the 
 rank of Colonel ; but he did not leave the field even to accept 
 that position of distinction, though tendered by his former 
 Colonel, the then President of the Confederacy. 
 
 After the surrender of Lee's Army, Colonel Holt returned to 
 his home, above Vicksburg, on the river, and resumed planting. 
 It was at this juncture that he betook himself to literary pursuits, 
 in writing a series of fictions, pursuant to a design formed many 
 years before, but which might never have been -put into execution 
 but for his changed fortunes. The family is one of position and 
 ancestral distinction. His education embraces a school know- 
 ledge of Latin and Greek, with something of German, Italian, 
 and Portuguese ; while he speaks French and Spanish very well. 
 
 In becoming an author, Colonel Holt's design was to portray 
 southern society as it existed for the fifty or sixty years previous 
 to the war. In order to do this in the most effective manner, |ie 
 created old Mr. Abraham Page, himself a Southern gentleman 
 but a very old man, who should tell the various stories the author 
 proposed to himself to write. This plot is given in the preface 
 of AbraJiam Page, Esq. — the first in this series — but so adroitly 
 worded as to have escaped the eye of one of the most careful 
 critics of the day, — as I shall illustrate when I come to a special 
 mention of this work. In addition to the artistic problem before 
 our author — that of leaving a correct delineation of Southern 
 society — he cherished, apparently, the hope of doing something 
 towards lifting the fictitious literature of the day out of its slough 
 
VltiNG WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 2f^ 
 
 of sensation and meretricious melodramatic effects, by presenting 
 specimens of more healthy narrative in more approved and unde- 
 filed English. Such should be the effect; for his English is 
 forcible and his ordonnanceire& from the dap-trap drarnatic tricks 
 that' make the fortunes of the thrilling-tale writers of the maga- 
 zines. 
 
 Colonel Holf s works thus far offered to the public are : — 
 I. The Life of Abraham Page, Esq. This appeared in the 
 spring of 1868, from the press of the Lippincotts, of Philadelphia. 
 It is, as already stated, a pure fiction, given in the form of an 
 autobiography. The vraisemblance of this personal nairatiye is 
 so perfect that the reader is constantly impressed with the con- 
 viction that the biography is not a fictibn at all. This complete 
 success of art is proven by the following notice of it in The Round 
 Table of the jbth of May: — "' 
 
 "The honest record of a good'man's long but uneventful life, 
 written without any apparent motive, save, perhaps, to preserve 
 his memory in the hearts of his friends, — or to give expression to 
 feelings for which there seems to be no other vent, — has an 
 air of sincerity which will always serve to recommend it to readers 
 who prefer truth to fiction, who desire to keep alive the remem- 
 brance of a period which has now but few living representatives, 
 and to revive the buried thoughts arid feelings of their earlier 
 days through the medium of narratives in which they may trace 
 some reiserablance to familiar scenes within their own experience. 
 The life of Mr. Abraham Page' is that of ^ Southern gentleman, 
 highly bred, honourable, courteous, and benevolent. It is 
 marked by no stirring events, nor does it furnish even the sli^test 
 materials for history, for Mr. Page lived in peaceful times, and 
 the great struggle between North and South only began as he 
 was nearing the grave, when he was too old to aid the cause in 
 the righteousness of which he firmly believed, except by giving 
 such means as were his to command and by making his house 
 an hospital for wounded and dying soldiers. Apart from a few 
 remarks on the war then raging, the narrative is confined to 
 24 
 
2 78 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 scenes occurring in private Jife, and the author, dwells at length 
 on social distinctions and the characters of men and women in 
 the immediate society to which he belongs. He has, with the 
 feelings natural to a man who can with truth boast that he was 
 born and bred and always lived in a high class of society, an 
 abhorrence of money- worshippers 2ltA parvenus'' 
 
 This, while it pays, in its .unconscious, way, a high tribute to 
 the art of the author, gives us a very fair idea of the tone, temper, ' 
 and scope of the book. It had a fine success, and new editions 
 — four at least — were called for within a few months. The 
 English press has received it with favour. 
 
 2. What T Know About Ben. Eccles., by Abraham Page, ap- 
 peared in 1869, from the press of J. B. Lippincott & Co., of 
 Philadelphia. It is a strange story of monomania, love, and 
 psychology; not a religious novel, but yet full of religipus 
 thoughts, and abounding in references to prayer. It is at l,east 
 ethical. The author, who represents himself as the editor of the 
 work, says of it, that, "it is more a psychological than a religious 
 story.'' Its dramatic interest is limited ; and, like Abraham Page, 
 it derives its chief interest and value from its truthful delineation 
 and evolution of Southern character, and the (one of Southern 
 society. The eccentricities of the hero and the pecuharities 
 elsewhere found in the book, are claimed by the author to be 
 true to nature. He says, "WTioever knows himian nature will 
 find it normally, though peculiarly, developed in them." The 
 book will hardly be popular in the sense in which we usually 
 apply that to a novel. 
 
 3. The Quines. This is the third in the series proposed, by 
 Colonel Holt; and is, perhaps, ready for the press. It was in 
 hand a few months ago, and to be given to the public at some 
 early day. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE ^OUTff. 279 
 
 JAMES BARRON HOPE. 
 
 It was during the lE^st disastrous days of the Confederacy^ — 
 the army of Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and the Presi- 
 dent and the government departments of the expiring regime were 
 in hegira from Richmond southward, — that I first met the subject 
 of this sketch. In the town of Greensboro", North CaroUna, I 
 was standing in front of the Cape-Fear Bank, just tlien, the 
 office of the Secretary of War of the Confederacy, when a gentle- 
 man on horseback rode up. He was a spare, slender man, cif 
 thin visage ; of rather light hair ; beard thin, and worn in Ameri- 
 can — full-faced— r style; wearing spectacles ; speaking iri a soft, 
 gentleman-like tone; of manner empress^ but refined and 
 Southern. He appeared a little less than six feet in height, and 
 wore the uniform of a Confederate captain. 
 
 The gentleman on horseback was named to me as Captain 
 Hope, Assistant Quartermaster at that post. 
 
 Captain Hope, I immediately learned, was James Barron 
 Hope, the well-known rising poet- of Virginia, of whom I had 
 known something for several years. 
 
 That was on Thursday, the 13th of April, 186.5. We exchanged 
 a few words of conversation, frequently interrupted. In fiye 
 minutes he passed on ; and in the earthquake of events that 
 rushed and crashed over us that day and the next, I did not 
 again enjoy an opportunity of seeing the poet captain. 
 
 Captain Hope is a native, I am informed, of the town of 
 . Hampton, Virginia ; at least his early years were passed and his 
 early education conducted there. He is a descendant from the 
 historic family of Barrons ; and his ancestors, on both sides, were 
 distinguished in the early exploits of the • Virginia navy. 
 
 He commenced literary pursuits when yet a boy. The first 
 literary distinction he won was from a series of poems which he 
 published in a Baltimore periodical, under the designation of 
 Poems, by the late Henry Ellen, Esq. 
 
 In 1857 he published a volume, entitled Zf^«f di'Monota, and 
 
!28b LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 OtJier Poems. This was his first, and, thus far, his only volume, 
 Its success was limited. 
 
 The most successful of his occasional poems was The Charge 
 at Balaklava. The late novelist, G. P. R. James, Esquire, then 
 British Consul at Richmond, was so delighted with this poem that 
 , he sent a copy to the Queen of England. It was graciously 
 acknowledged by her; and, being published in that country, 
 received many favourable notices from the press of the day. 
 
 He still writes for the press occasionally ; though his time is 
 much engrossed in editorial labours, he being editor of a daily 
 newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia. 
 
 In 1866 he was engaged in the preparation of a work on The 
 Literati of the South ; but it has not yet appeared. 
 
 Among the minor poems of Captain Hope are several of 
 genuine merit. The tone is often bold, passionate, and strong ; 
 while the style is elevated, sometimes strikingly forcible, and 
 sometimes a little marred by too much of the declamatory. 
 Touches of happily-put fancy abound ; not always entirely 
 original, but always gracefully rendered. As illustrative of my 
 meaning in this connection I may quote his rendering of the 
 often-used simile of the star and wave. In his Evening, Cap- 
 tain Hope says : — 
 
 All is quiet save the murmur 
 
 Of the tide upon the bar ; 
 See each little breaker playing 
 
 With the image of a star ! 
 
 This, in the material used at least, recalls Mrs. Welb/s fairy-like 
 conceit, in some lines which she calls Musings : — 
 
 The twilight hours, like birds, flew by, 
 
 As lightly and as free ; 
 Ten thousand stars were in the sky. 
 
 Ten thousand on the sea ; 
 For every wave, with dimpled face, 
 
 That leaped upon the air, 
 Had caugfht a star in its embrace, 
 
 And held it trembhng there. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF TII& SOUTH'. 281 
 
 And this itself recalls a couplet in Colardeau's EpUre d M. 
 Duhamel, which runs in this wise : — 
 
 Chaque objet s'y repute et ronde qui vacille 
 Balance dans son sien cette image mobile. 
 
 But then Colardeau appears to have had only stars in his mind 
 — stars, minus the embracing, toying, and trembling, that is to 
 say. 
 
 Perhaps the most vigourous, as well as the most ambitious, of 
 Captain Hope's minor poems is The Charge at Balaklava: — 
 
 Spurring onward. Captain Nolan 
 
 Spurring furiously is seen; 
 And although the road meanders. 
 His no heavy steed of Flanders, 
 But one fit for the commanders 
 
 Of. her majesty the Queen. 
 
 Halting where the noble squadrons 
 
 Stood impatient of delay, 
 Out he drew his brief de^atches. 
 Which their leader quickly sAatches; 
 At a glance their meaning catches : 
 
 They are ordered to the fray. 
 
 AU that morning they had waited. 
 
 As their frowning faces showed : 
 Horses stamping, riders fretting. 
 And their teeth together settmg. 
 Not a single sword-blade wetting. 
 
 As the battle ebbed and flowed. 
 
 Now the fevered spell is broken ; 
 
 Every man feels twice as large ; 
 Every heart is fiercely leaping. 
 As a lion roused from sleeping. 
 For they know they shall be sweeping 
 
 In a moment to the charge. 
 24* 
 
282 LIVING WRITERS OF T£[£ SOUTH. 
 
 Brightly gleam six hundred sabres, 
 And the brazen trumpets ring; 
 Steeds are gathered, spurs are driven, 
 And the heavens wildly riven 
 With a mad shout upward given, 
 Scaring vultures on the vmg. 
 
 Stem its meaning : was not Gallia 
 Looking down on Albion's sons? 
 In each mind this thought implanted. 
 Undismayed and all undaunted. 
 By the battle-fields enchanted. 
 On they ride upon the guns. 
 
 Onward, on the chargers trample. 
 Quicker falls each iron heel. 
 
 And the headlong pace grows faster ; 
 
 Noble steeds and noble master. 
 
 Rushing on to red disaster. 
 Where the heavy cannons peaL 
 
 In the van rides Captain Nolan ; 
 
 Wide his flying tresses wave ; 
 And his heavy broadsword flashes, , 
 As upon the foe he dashes i 
 God ! his face turns white as ashes. 
 
 He has ridden to his grave. 
 
 Do^vn he fell, prone from his saddle, 
 Without motion, without breath. 
 
 Never more at trump to waken — 
 
 He the very first one taken 
 
 From the bough so sorely shaken 
 111 the vintage-time of Death. 
 
 In a moment, in a twinlding, 
 
 He was gathered to his rest ; 
 In the time for which he'd waited -»- 
 With his gallant heart elated — 
 Dojvn went Nolan, decorated 
 
 With a death-wound on his breast. 
 
-LIVING WRITERS OF yTHE SOUTH. 283 
 
 Comrades still, are Qii-vv^d chafgipg, 
 
 1-Ie is lying on the sod; 
 Onwaid still their steeds are rushing 
 Where the shot and shell are crushing : 
 From his corpse the blood i^ gushing^ 
 
 And his soul is with bis God. 
 
 As they spur on, what strange visions 
 
 Flit across each rider's brain ; 
 Thoughts of maidens fair, of mothers. 
 Friends and sisters, wives anfl brothers. 
 Blent with images of others. 
 
 Whom they pe'er shall see again. 
 
 Onward still the squadrons thunder, — 
 Knightly hearts were theirs, and brave ; 
 
 Men ai\d horses, without number. 
 
 All the furrowed ground encumber, 
 
 Falling fast to their last slumber, — 
 Blobdy slumber ! bloody grave ! 
 
 Of that charge at Balaklava, 
 
 In its chivalry sublime, 
 Vivid, grand, historic pages 
 Shall descend to future ages ; 
 Poets, painters, hoary sages. 
 
 Shall record it for all time. 
 
 Telling how those English horsemen 
 
 Rode the Russian gunners down ; 
 How with ranks all torn and shattered. 
 How with helmets hacked and battered. 
 How with sword and arms blood-spattered. 
 
 They won honour and renown. 
 
 'Twas "not war," but it was splendid 
 
 As a dream of old romance ; 
 Thinking which their'Gallic'iieighbours 
 Thrilled to watch them at their laboilrs, 
 Hewing red graves with their sabres 
 
 In that wonderful advance. ' 
 
284 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Down went many a gallant soldier ; 
 
 Down went many a stout dragoon ; 
 Lying grim and stark and gory 
 On the crimson field of glory, 
 I^eaving us a nolsle story 
 
 And their white-cliffed hdme a boon. 
 
 Full of hopes and aspirations 
 
 Were their hearts at dawn of day; 
 Now, with forms all rent and broken. 
 Bearing each some frightful token 
 Of a scene ne'er to be spoken, 
 
 In their silent sleep they lay. 
 
 Here a noble charger stiffens. 
 
 There his rider grasps the hilt 
 Of his sabre, lying blbody 
 By his side, upon the muddy 
 Trcunpled ground, which, darkly ruddy 
 
 Shows the blood that he has spilt. 
 
 And to-nijght the moon shall shuddsr 
 
 As she looks down on the moor. 
 Where the dead of hostile races 
 Slumber, slaughtered in their places; 
 All thsir rigid, ghastly faces. 
 
 Spattered hideously with gore. 
 
 And the sleepers ! ah, the sleepers 
 
 Made a Westminster that day, 
 'Mid the seething battle's lava ! 
 And each man who fell shall have a 
 Proud inscription — Balaklava, 
 
 Which shall never fade away. 
 
 It must be confessed that our poet did an adventurous deed 
 in taking the subject that the Laureate of England had just 
 rendered peculiarly his own; but Alexander Smith and Judge 
 Meek did no less bravely in attempting the same. 
 
 I should be glad, had I room, to give entire Three Summer 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 285 
 
 Studies; but one of the studies, the second — Noon — will im- 
 press the dwellers in the sunny laj^d with its musical truth and 
 suggestive variety. The studies are all rural; and Noon is a 
 gem : — 
 
 Over the farm is brooding silence now : 
 No reaper's song, no raven's clangour harsh. 
 
 No bleat of sheep, no distant low of cow. 
 
 No croak of frogs within the spreading marsh. 
 
 No bra^ng cock from littered farm-yard crows, — 
 
 The scene is steeped in silence and repose. 
 
 A trembling haze hangs over all the fields, — 
 
 The panting cattle in the river stand, 
 Seeking the coolness which its wave scarce yields. 
 
 It seems a Sabbath through the drowsy land : 
 So hushed is all beneath the summer's spell, 
 I pause and listen for some faint church-bell. 
 
 The leaves are motionless, the sgng-birds mute, 
 
 The very air seems somnolent and sick. 
 The spreading branches with o'ei -ripened fruit 
 
 Show in the sunshine all their clusters thick. 
 While now and then a mellow apple falls 
 With a dull sound within the orchard's walls. 
 
 The sky has but one solitary cloud. 
 
 Like a dark island in a sea of light ; 
 The parching furrows 'twixt the corn-rows plowed. 
 
 Seem fairly dancing in my dazzled sight. 
 While over yonder road a dusty haze 
 Grows reddish-purple in the sultry blaze. 
 
 ORVILLE HORWITZ. 
 
 This writer resides in Baltimore. Has written Gleanings by 
 the Wayside. 
 Is a jew. 
 
286 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTTt. 
 
 JED. HOTCHKISS. 
 
 Captain Hotchkiss was Topographical Engineer in one of 
 the corps of the Ariny of Northern Virginia ; and, in conjunction 
 with Col. William Allen of the same corps, prepared a series of 
 guide-books to the many battle-fields of Virginia. The first of 
 this series appeared in 1868, under the running-title of The Bat- 
 tle-fields of Virgina, tiie special title being Chancellorsville ; 
 embracing the Operations of the Army of Northern Virginia 
 from the First Battle of Fredericksburg to the Death of Lieu- 
 tenant-General Jackson. The volume is illustrated with a steel- 
 engraving of General Jackson, and five finely-executed maps, 
 showing the positions of the respective armies during their opera- 
 tions about Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, in 1862 and 
 1863. 
 
 ROBERT R. HOWISON. 
 
 Very few men retain or achieve a clearly-defined eminence in 
 any regular profession — least of all, in law — and at the same 
 time take high position in any branch of literary pursuits. Mr. 
 Howison is one of that very few. He stands high at the bar, 
 and has won distinction, as a historian. 
 
 Those who do not " smile at the claims of long descent" will 
 find it a noteworthy fac.t that our author belongs to one of the 
 most ancient families of the Scotch peerage. Burke, the great 
 standard authority on British heraldry and genealogy, speaking 
 of the Howisons, says : " This family, of all those that have 
 lived with repute in the District of Cramond, in Midlothian, is 
 by far the most ancient, having coijtinued there for more than 
 three centiiries and a half." Agriculture, from the earliest tradi- 
 tions of the family — even in 1424 — has been the favourite 
 pursuit of its members. The Howison coat of arms is cdmme- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 28'j 
 
 morative of achievements connected with husbandry, dating back 
 to King James the First,' of Scotland. But one immigration of 
 the family into America is known ; and the branch of which I am 
 speaking is probably the only one bearing the name in the United 
 States. They bought lands and settled in Prince William County, 
 Virginia, where many of their descendents still live, " Of these," 
 a record from which I gadier my iiiformation states, " Allen 
 Hovvison of Effingham is best known. From tlie Prince William 
 branch tlie Fredericksburg family is descended.' Saiiiuel Howi- 
 son, from Prince William, settled in Fredericksburg as a merchant, 
 and in 1801 married Helen Moore, a daughter of an English 
 merchant, who had conducted business in Falmouth for many 
 years. From this marriage eleven children were born, and they, 
 or their descendants, are now widely known in our country." 
 Of these eleven cliildrefi, the suTjject of this sketch, Robert R. 
 Howison, is one ; nov/ a distinguished member of tlie Richmond 
 bar. 
 
 He was born on Thursday, the 22d of June, 1820 ; and has 
 been practicing law in the city of Richmond, "Virginia, since the 
 year 1845 — more than twenty years. 
 
 He has written : ^ 
 
 1. A History of Virginia from its Discovery and Settie'ment by 
 Ertropeans to the Present Time, — in two octavo volumes. "Vol- 
 ume One contains the history of the Colony to the Peace of 
 Paris in 1 763 ; and was pubUshed ,by Carey & Hart, Philadel- 
 phia, in 1845. "Volume Two contains the history of the Colony 
 and of the State, from, the Peace of Paris to die retrocession of 
 Alexandria, in 1847 ; and was published by Drinker & Morris, 
 Richmond, in 1847. 
 
 2. Lives of Generals Morgan, Marion, and Gates. Published 
 in 1848, by Carey & Hart, in their publication entitled Wash- 
 ington and the Generals of the American Revolution: 
 
 3. History of the War between the United States and the 
 Confederate States of America. One volume of this history ap- 
 peared serially in The Southern Literary Messenger, a monthly 
 
288 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of Richmond, during the war. The work has recently been 
 "brought to a close ; and will be published entire as soon as the 
 results of the war are more fully developed. 
 
 4. Report of the Joint Committee of the Confederate Congress 
 on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. This report was written 
 by Mr. Howison, as secretary of that committee, and was first 
 published in March, 1865, — the last days of the Confederacy. It 
 was republished in various northerp newspapers after the war, and 
 is given in full in Pollard's Lost Cause. 
 
 Mr. Howison ranks high among the historical writers of the 
 South, — with Gayarr6, and men of that stamp. 
 
 CORNELIUS E. HUNT. 
 
 A volume entitled The Shenandoah ; or The Last Confederate 
 Cruiser, by Cornelius E. Hunt. — one of tlie officers — appeared 
 in 1867. 
 
 Beyond this I am not aware that Capt. Hunt has any literary 
 record. That of some of his military and nautical experiences 
 are to be found in his book. 
 
 JAMES HUNGERFORD. 
 
 The present editor of The Southern Home Journal, a weekly 
 literary paper of Baltimore, is principally known as the author 
 oi The Old Plantation, — a novel of Soutliern life. In addition 
 to his editorial labours, Mr. Hungerford contributed a serial tal« 
 to the columns of his own paper. The title of this tale hThe 
 Master of Beverley ; or, the Villainous Plot. It ran through the 
 greater part of the summer of j868. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 289 
 
 HENRY R. JACKSON. 
 
 The poems of General Jackson breathe more of his native air, 
 and speak more of local matters, than those of any otlier of our 
 Southern poets. He sings his native heath. 
 
 Henry R. Jackson was born at Athens, Georgia, on Saturday, 
 the 24th of June, 1820. His father was Dr. Henry Jackson, at 
 one time Professor of Natural Philosophy in Franklin College, 
 at Athens; at which institution his son — the subject of our 
 sketch — graduated. 
 
 He was educated for the bar. After practicing law for a num- 
 ber of years, he was appointed United States Attorney for the 
 District of Georgia. 
 
 In 1846 he led an infantry regiment of volunteers, as its 
 colonel, to Mexico, where he served witii great distinction during 
 th^ war. It was in this service that he wrote some of his finest 
 poems. After his return from the Mexican war, he became 
 editor of the Savannah Georgian, and continued in tliat position 
 until the winter of 1849. 
 
 In 1849 he was elected by the legislature of his state to the 
 office of Judge of the Superior Court of the Eastern District of 
 Georgia. He was an honour to the ermine, and wore it four 
 years. 
 
 In 1850 he published his first and only volume — a collection 
 of his fugitive verses — under the title of Tallulah, and Other 
 Poems. The work was issued by Cooper, in Savannah. This 
 was during his judgeship. The subjects are largely local, and 
 the tone domestic and patriotic. 
 
 In 1853 he was appointed Resident Minister of the United 
 States, at the capital of the empire of Austria. He remained in 
 Vienna for five years, returning to Savannah in 1858, where he 
 practiced law in the firm of Ward, Jackson, & Jones, until the 
 beginning of the War of Secession. 
 
 During the war, he served with distinction in the field as a 
 
 2S 
 
290 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 brigade commander ; but was called home during the second year 
 of the war, to take command of the Georgia State Troops, at 
 Savannah. 
 
 General Jackson's poems are characterized, as I have said, by 
 a spirit of patriotic devotion' and strong local attachments, many 
 of them being upon subjects connected either socially or by local 
 relations, to his home and country. His best are Oconee, My 
 Father, The Dead -of the Georgia Regiment, and The Live Oak. 
 My Wife and Child, written during his campaigning in Mexico, 
 went the rounds of the press in its day ; but during the war of 
 Secession by some chance it got into the current of newspaper- 
 dom, and again went the rounds of the Southern press attributed 
 to Stonewall Jackson — the Great Flanker; thus affording a 
 striking instance of mania, shown in the determined purpose to 
 pay a compliment to a favourite personage, and to this end going 
 so far as to entertain and assert the insane idea that the Great 
 Flanker did, would, or ever could, write verse, to say hothing of 
 poetry. 
 
 My Father is one of the poems mentioned : — 
 
 As die the embers on the hearth, 
 
 And o'er the floor the shadows fall, 
 And creeps the chirpmg cricket forth, 
 
 And ticks the death-watch in the wall, 
 I see a form in yonder chair 
 
 That grows beneath the waning light, 
 There are the wan, sad features, — there 
 
 The pallid brow and locks of white. 
 
 My father ! when they laid thee down, 
 
 And heaped the clay upon thy breast, 
 And left thee sleeping all alone 
 
 Upon the narrow couch of rest, 
 I know not why I could not weep, 
 
 The soothing drops refused to roll. 
 And oh ! that grief is wild and deep 
 
 Which settles tearless on the souL 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 291 
 
 But when I saw thy vacant chair. 
 
 Thy idle-hat upon the wall, 
 Thy books — the pencilled passage where 
 
 Thine eye had rested last of all, 
 The tree beneath whose friendly shade 
 
 Thy tremblmg feet had wandered forth. 
 The very prints those feet had made 
 
 When last they feebly trod the earth, ^- 
 
 And thought, while countless ages fled. 
 
 The vacant seat would vacant stand ; 
 Unworn thy;hat, thy book unread„ ; 
 
 Effaced the footsteps from the sand ; , 
 And widowed in this cheerless world 
 
 The heart that gave its life to thee, — 
 Tom like the vine whose tendrils curled 
 
 More closely round the falling tree. 
 
 Then, Father ! for her sake and thee, 
 
 Gushed madly forth the scalding tears ; 
 And 6ft, and long, and bitterly 
 
 Those tears have gushed in later years ; 
 For as the vrorld grows cold around. 
 
 And things, take on their real hue, 
 Tis sad to learn that love is found 
 
 Alone, above the stars with you ! 
 
 The poem that has gained our Author the most notoriety — 
 referred to above — was written while in Camp in the Mexican 
 campaign, and is called My Wife and Child, which I quote, 
 entire : — 
 
 The tattoo "beats; the lights are goue; 
 
 The camp around in slumber lies; 
 The night with solemij: pace moves on ; 
 
 The shadows thicken o'er the skies ; 
 But sleep my- weary eyes hath flown. 
 
 And sad, uneasy thoughts arise. 
 I tliii^k of thee, oh, dearest one ! 
 
 Whose love mine early life hath blest : 
 Of thee and him — our baby son — 
 
 Who slumbers bn thy gentle breast. 
 
29a LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 God of the ten4er, frail, and lone, 
 
 Oh, guard that little sleeper's rest ! 
 And hover, gently hover near 
 
 To her whose watchful eye is wet — 
 The mother, wife, — the doubly dear. 
 
 In whose young heart have freshly met 
 Two streams of love, so deep and dear, 
 
 And cheer her drooping spirit yet 1 
 Now, as she kneels before thy throne. 
 
 Oh, teach her, Ruler of the skies ! 
 That while by thy behest alone 
 
 Earth's mightiest powers fall or rise ; 
 No tear is wept to thee unknown. 
 
 Nor hair is lost, nor sparrow dies ; 
 That thou canst stay the ruthless hand 
 
 Of dark disease, and soothe its pain; 
 That only by thy stem command 
 
 The battle's lost, the soldier slain ; 
 That from the distant sea or land 
 
 Thou bring'st the wanderer home again ; 
 And when upon her pillow lone. 
 
 Her tear-wet cheek is sadly pressed 
 May happier visions beam upon 
 
 The brightening currents of her breast ; 
 Nor frowning look, nor angry tone 
 
 Disturb the Sabbath of her rest ! 
 Whatever fate those forms may throw. 
 
 Loved with a passion almost wild. 
 By day, by night, — in joy or woe, — 
 
 By fears oppressed or hopes beugiled ; 
 From every danger, every foe, 
 
 O God ! protect my wife and child ! 
 
 MRS. ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY. 
 
 Mrs. Jeffrey is one of the most genuinely Southern of our 
 female writers of the South. ' Her genius, imagination, and tem- 
 perament are essentially Southern. She is a native of Natdies, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. -293 
 
 Mississippi, her maiden name being Griffith. She was adopted 
 by her maternal aunt, Mrs. Vertner, and received her name. 
 Her childhood was passed at Burlington, a beautiful country- 
 seat near Port Gibson, Mississippi. She was educated at the 
 celebrated seminary of Bishop Smith, at Lexington, Kentucky. 
 At the age of seventeen Miss Vertner became the wife of Claude 
 M. Johnson, a gentleman of character, culture, and fortune, 
 resident in Louisiana. Mrs. Johnson wrote frequently for the 
 periodicals of that day ; and made her appearance as a poet, in 
 book form, in 1857. After the death of Mr. Johnson, she resided 
 mainly with her adoptive parents in Lexington, Kentuckyj until 
 her second marriage. She has spent a few years, since the war, 
 entirely, I believe, in Rochester, New York. She is now per- 
 manently located in Lexington, Kentucky. 
 
 Mrs. Jefrre)r's contributions to literature are : — 
 
 I. Poems, by Rosa Vertner Johnson. This handsome little 
 volume appeared from the press of Ticknor & Fields, in 1858, 
 and was well received. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, said 
 of it: — 
 
 " In the blooming field of modern poetry, we really know not 
 where to look for productions at once so full of merit and so 
 free from defect ; so luxuriant, and yet so pure. The genius of 
 the writer is equally stainless and exact. As regards not only 
 the moral, but the literary quality of her productions, she has 
 written nothing 'which, dying, she could wish to blot' " 
 
 Mrs. Freeman, in her elegant volume upon The Women oftf^ 
 South,^\L% discriminatingly characterizes the psychological status 
 of our author, then (i860) Mrs. Johnson : — 
 
 " In many of the works of this writer we see glimpses of a 
 substratum of passionate power, which has never been stirred. 
 A deep fountain was troubled at the death- of -her children, but 
 troubled by an angel ; and her songs grew more low and tender, 
 — the mother's pang lost in the mother's hope. But it is evi- 
 dent that no shaft of agony has yet buried itself in the intense 
 silences of her nature. No ranklii^ thorn quivers in her emo- 
 
 2S' 
 
294 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 tions — tips her words yA'da arrowy flame — break? the silvery 
 flow of her rhythm with gusts and gleams which will not be con- 
 trolled. Yet this latent force is revealed in the body and poise 
 of her writings." 
 
 I shall give below a specimen or two of her verse-style. 
 
 2. Woodburn: aNovel. This book appeared in 1864. Wood- 
 bum is the name of the youth-home of Amy Percy, the heroine 
 of the story. The "patient search and vigil long" of Basil 
 Thorn, and his cruel and fearful revenge, are features of the 
 work that border on the sensational. A Southern lady, herself 
 a poet and an author, thus discusses the book and its bear- 
 ings:— 
 
 " There is not the least efibrt, in this book, after what is called 
 'fine writing.' The whole tale of love and hate, of joy and woe, 
 is told with the simpUcity and childlike earnestness which seem 
 to characterize the nature of little Amy Percy herself, the youth- 
 ful story-teller. It is a description of social Southern life before 
 the war, and abounds in truthful pictures of the happy, easy, 
 care-free days of that favoured and prosperous time. The frank 
 cordiality, the warm-hearted hospitality, the gay rides, and merry 
 meetings of friends and neighbours, are all true delineations of 
 that happier time, among the dwellers in the 'Land of the 
 Mocking-bird and Magnolia.' " 
 
 3. Normandale, — a novel, still in the hands of the author. 
 
 4. Waif ; or the Monktons, — a novel of the novelette style, 
 yet unpublished. 
 
 5. Florence Vale, a Tale of Tuscany, — a long poem ; as to its 
 form, narrative ; and as to its style, cliaracteristic of the fervour 
 of the poet's mind. The verse used, in the main, and the 
 general tone, will appear to some extent in a few lines which I 
 submit as better adapted to my purpose than a critique on the 
 whole would be : — 
 
 I have been blest, — so fully blest, that basliing in the light 
 
 Of perfect joy, grief was to me like a wild and stormy night 
 
 To those who sweep silk curtains back, and watch the shut-out gloom> 
 
 Amid the rosy atmosphere of some luxurious room. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 295 
 
 I Icnew that death was in the world, and woe, and bitterness. 
 But, insolent in happiness, I thought of sorrow less 
 Than children think of cold, who gaze on painted polar seas, 
 'Mid Syrian roses, 'neath the shade of balmy citron-trees. 
 
 But when it came, Heaven de3.It the blow with an unsparing hand ; 
 I dreamed in Eden, to awake 'mid wastes of burning sand, — 
 Ijfe's dreary wastes, — which 'neath a load of hate I've wandered thro'. 
 Weary, as 'neath his Saviour's curse, speeds on The Wandering Jew. 
 
 Among Mrs. Jeffrey's earlier poems, Hasheesh Visions is 
 one of singular power and peculiar passionateness, and con- 
 stantly suggests the kindred genius of Mrs. Norton, which sug- 
 gestion, by the way, occurs times and again, as we read through 
 these Poems by Rosa. Mrs. Jeffrey is the Mrs. Norton of the 
 South. Hasheesh Visions is too long for quotation here. As 
 illustrative of our audior's lyric style, I give The Night Has 
 Come : — 
 
 The night has come, when I may sleep. 
 
 To dream, perchance of thee, — 
 And where art thou ? Where south-winds sweep 
 
 Along a southern sea. 
 Thy home a glorious tropic isle 
 
 On which the sun with pride 
 Doth smile, as might a sultan smile 
 
 On his Circassian bride. 
 
 And where the south-wind gently stirs 
 
 A chime of fragrant bells. 
 While come the waves as worshippers. 
 
 With rosary of shells. 
 The altars on the shore to wreathe. 
 
 Where, in the twilight dim. 
 Like nuns, the foam-veiled breakers breathe 
 
 Their wild and gushing hymn. 
 
 The night has come, and I will glide 
 
 O'er sleep's hushed waves the while. 
 In dreams to wander by thy side 
 
 Through that enchanting isle. 
 
296 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 For, in the dark, my fancy seems 
 
 As full of witching spells 
 As yon blue sky of starry beams 
 
 Or ocean-depths of shells. 
 
 Yet, sometimes visions do becloud 
 
 My soul with such strange fears. 
 They wrap me like an icy shroud 
 
 And leave my soul in tears. 
 For once methought thy hand did bind 
 
 Upon my brow a wreath 
 In which a viper was entwined 
 
 That stmig me unto death. 
 
 And once within a lotus cup. 
 
 Which thou to me didst bring, 
 A deadly vampire folded up 
 
 Its cold and murky wmg ; 
 And springing from that dewy nest. 
 
 It drained life's azure rills 
 That wandered o'er my swelling breast. 
 
 Like brooks through snow-clad hills. 
 
 Yet seemed it sweeter thus to die 
 
 There, in thy very sight, 
 Than see thee 'neath that tropic sky. 
 
 As in my dreams last night. 
 For lo, within a palmy grove. 
 
 Unto an eastern maid 
 I heard thee whispering vows of love 
 
 Beneath the feathery shade. 
 
 And stately as the palm was she. 
 
 Yet thrilled with thy wild words. 
 As its green crown might shaJcen be 
 
 By many bright-winged birds ; 
 And 'neath thy smile, in her dark eye, 
 
 A rapturous light did spring. 
 As in a lake soft shadows lie. 
 
 Dropped from the rainbow's wing. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 29? 
 
 No serpent from the wreathe did start. 
 
 Which round her brow was twined ; 
 Nor in the lotus' perfumed heart 
 
 Did she a vampire find ; 
 For humming-birds were nestled there. 
 
 By summer sweets oppressed, 
 A type of her whose raven hair 
 
 Was floating o'er thy breast. 
 
 While thus I dreamed, all cold and mute. 
 
 My warm glad heart had grown, 
 Like some fair flower or sunny fruit. 
 
 Turned by the waves to stone ; 
 For o'er the treasures of my soul 
 
 There swept a blacker tide 
 Than e'en the dismal floods^that roll 
 
 O'er Sodom's buried pride. 
 
 But passed away that vision dark. 
 
 And now once more I come. 
 In slumber's slight, fantastic bark, 
 
 Unto thy island home ; 
 And thou art waiting there for me 
 
 To weep upon thy breast. 
 As on the shore the troubled sea 
 
 Doth sigh itself to rest. 
 
 My vnreath seems now of orange-flowers, 
 
 And from the chaplet pale 
 Do glow-worms drop in shining showers 
 
 To weave my biidal veil. 
 The stars — God's holy tapers — light 
 
 The altars of the shore. 
 And on us doth the solemn night 
 
 A benediction pour. 
 
298 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. CAROLINE HOWARD GLOVER JERVEY. 
 
 Mrs. Jervey — nee Gilman — was born in Charleston, South 
 Carolina, in 1823, and is the daughter of the late Dr. Samuel 
 Gilraan and Mrs. Gilman, mentioned elsewhere in the present 
 volume. 
 
 In 1840 she became Mrs. Glover; and lived in Charleston 
 until her widowhood, which commenced in 1846; from which 
 time until her marriage to Mr. Jervey — 1865 — she resided with 
 her mother, in Charleston. 
 
 Mrs. Jerve/s nom de plume has been Caroline Howard. She 
 has written tales, poems, and novels. 
 
 The following are her published volumes : — 
 
 1. Vernon Grove. A novel. 
 
 2. Helen Courtenay's Promise, — a novel which a critic has 
 called the "product of a brilliant creative fancy." The scene of 
 this story is partly in the old world and partly in America. 
 
 Mrs. Jervey' s poetry is healthy aud cheerful, full of lively 
 fancy and graceful thoughts. This stanza, from her poem on 
 Spring-Time, is illustrative of these characteristics : — 
 
 Last eve the moon on modest twilight smiled, 
 
 And told the stars 'twas spring ! 
 She swept the wave, — deliciously it gleamed ; 
 She touched the birds, and woke them as they dreamed, 
 
 A few soft notes to sing. 
 
 R. M. JOHNSON. 
 
 At the beginning of the late war, Professor Johnson published 
 his work on 2'he English Classics. It is a small volume of about 
 three hundred pages, covering, however, the entire range of 
 English literature from the earliest writers to those of the days of 
 George III. One or two hundred works are discussed, and 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 299 
 
 authorities are freely and fully cited. The work is noted for its 
 accuracy, correctness of opinion, and clearness. Its design is 
 for use as a text-book in colleges. 
 
 Professor Johnson is connected witli the University of Georgia, 
 at Athens, in that state. 
 
 MRS. CORNELIA J. M. JORDAN. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan is the only southern writer, as far as I am aware, 
 who enjoys the distinction of having had one of her works burned 
 by military order. This event occurred in 1865, as I shall 
 presently have occasion to mention. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan — nee Matthews — was born in Lynchburg, Vir- 
 ginia, on the nth of January, 1830 ; and is the eldest of three chil- 
 dren. Her education was conducted at the Catholic Academy 
 of the Visitation, at Georgetown, D* C, where her poetic faculty 
 was discovered to manifest itself in rhymed compositions upon 
 the passing events about her — as discovered and encouraged by 
 the Sisters of the Visitation, and she was playfully known as The 
 Poet Laureate. There, too, she knew her first life-touching sorrow, 
 in the death of a sister. Music was one of her early passions, — 
 more a specialty of her girlhood days than verse-writing. In 
 1851 she was married to F. H. Jordan, Esquire, a lawyer of 
 Luray, which is in Page County. In 1861 she published her first 
 volume of poems. War swept from her enjoyment the luxury of 
 wealth. She is now resident in Lynchburg, her native cit}', 
 earnestly at work with her pen. Her published works are : — 
 
 1. Flowers of Hope and Memory, — a collection of fugitive 
 poems, published in a duodecimo of 330 pages, by A. Morris of 
 Richmond, in 186 1. It contains a steel engraving of the author. 
 The war, which commenced immediately after its appearance, 
 prevented its being a pecuniary success. 
 
 2. Corinth, and Other Poems of the War. The leading poem 
 
30O LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 in this collection was -written at Corinth, whither the author had 
 gone to be neas^her husband, who was at that time upon the 
 staff of General Beauregard. It was published in August, 1865 ; 
 and immediately upon its appeara&ce General Terry, then com- 
 manding at Richmond, ordered it to be seized and burned as 
 "objectionable and incendiary." In execution of this order, 
 Corinth and Other Poems iovcs»sA a bonfire in the Court-House 
 yard in Lynchburg, on Wednesday, the 16th of August, 1865. 
 Coritith is a spirited war-poem of a dozen pages, praising the 
 gallantry of the Southern generals and soldiers, with hits here 
 and there at " tyranny," and some similar things. Of the Other 
 Poems, that on The Death of Jackson seems to be the finest. 
 
 3. A Christmas Poem, for the children. A brochure of twenty 
 odd pages, which was published in Lynchburg for tlie Christmas 
 of 1865. 
 
 4. Richmond: Her Glory and Her Graves. A poem of about 
 thirty pages, published in Richmond, during 1867. This also 
 contains some Other Poems, among which may be mentioned 
 An Appeal for Jefferson Davis, and Farewell to the Flag. 
 From the leading poem I give the following extract — the point 
 in the narrative is the memorable Sunday before the surrender, 
 when the President was summoned from church to attend to 
 military matters : — 
 
 Amid the great assembled throng 
 
 He knelt — our own bold leader strong — 
 
 Christ's lowly follower now ; 
 A light serene burned in his eye. 
 And truth sublime, and majesty 
 
 Sat on his peerless brow. 
 
 He knelt and worshipped with the rest. 
 That great, brave soul, whose patriot breast 
 
 With sad emotions stirred, 
 As 'mid the Sabbath's qitiet hum 
 The sounds of martial trump and drum 
 
 Were near and nearer heard. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 301 
 
 But was not Richmond safe the while 
 Beneath the spring day's glowing smile — 
 
 The April skies so clear ? 
 Was not her banner waving high, 
 ■ The vamiting foeman to defy — 
 Her gallant army neai- ? 
 
 Ah, why should brave hearts feel alarm. 
 If God will shield the right from harm. 
 
 How can wrong triumph then? 
 And while the air with war-ijotes rang. 
 Calm voices clear the chorus sang. 
 
 Of " Peace— good will to inen." 
 
 The grand old anthem rose on high. 
 From lips that owned no prophesy 
 
 Of evil's coming hour — 
 " Te deum laudamus" was sung 
 By many a rapt, devoted tongue. 
 
 With more than wonted power. 
 
 But hark ! amid the organ's swell, 
 A note discordant strangely fell — 
 
 A sound smote every ear ! 
 Men glanced with nervous eye, and gave 
 Unuttered prayers their cause to save. 
 
 And women paled with fear. 
 
 " Wliat is it— what?" is whispered low. 
 As through the aisles, the sexton now 
 
 A hurried message bore — 
 And Davis calmly rose — no signs 
 Of aught to mar the tranquil lines 
 
 His noble features wore. 
 
 Yet as that kingly form withdrew. 
 Instinctively each bowed heart Itnew 
 
 That danger threatened nigh ; 
 The booming cannon's rolling sound. 
 Like jarring thunder stirred the ground. 
 
 And tears filled many an eye. 
 26 
 
302 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Too soon the startling truth is' told, 
 That brave Lee can no longer hold 
 
 His thin and wasted lines ; 
 Already from the fields afar, 
 Dark with the gathering storms of war, 
 
 The foeman's emblem shines. 
 
 The following extract from a more recent poem, entitled Our 
 Dead, favourably illustrates our author's style : 
 
 Oh hearts ! hushed and still is your beating; 
 
 Past, past is your anguish and pain. 
 While our own bleed and break with the sorrow 
 
 That clings round the fallen and slain. 
 Aye, break at the mournful remembrance 
 
 Of suff 'rings heroically borne — 
 The march long and hard, the short ration. 
 
 The hunger to God only known. 
 
 The thirst, with no water t' allay it ; 
 
 The sickness ; the longing for home ; 
 The wild and delirious calling 
 
 For mothers that never could come ; 
 The painful privations, th' exposure 
 
 To hardships none living may know ; 
 The rush to the battle-front, eager 
 
 Life's all in the struggle to throw. 
 
 The struggle — how grand and how glorious ! 
 
 What pen on the pages of Time 
 May leave e'en the faintest impression 
 
 Of all its devotion sublime? 
 The cheerful surrender of comfort. 
 
 The patient endurance of pain. 
 The courage no danger could baffle. 
 
 No human eye witness again. 
 
 Ah ! mournful, indeed, is the story 
 
 Of those whose dear lives paid the cost — 
 
 Of this dauntless devotion to duty — 
 This zeal in a cause that was lost. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 303 
 
 Some fell in the stonn of the battle : 
 
 The son, side by side with the sire ; 
 Some died in the hospital dreary, 
 
 And some by the bivouac fire. 
 
 Some languished in prison, far distant 
 
 From sympathy, kindred, and friends; 
 Some perished on picket, and many. 
 
 Ah ! many no knowledge attends. 
 These passed to the front with the others, 
 
 And all that remains since to know 
 Is that God holds the secret in heaven 
 
 Of how they were rftissing below. 
 
 Fond eyes have looked long for their coming, 
 
 Fond hearts have been waiting in vain ; 
 No smiles will e'er greet their returning, 
 
 No fate will restore them again. 
 Dead ! how? ah, the secret unfathomed 
 
 We only can patiently wait 
 Till their souls meet our own, and united 
 
 We walk through the Beautiful Gate. 
 
 Here all unexplained is the mystery. 
 
 We grope through a terrible dark. 
 Faith, blinded and dull, struggles wildly 
 
 To kindle hope's languishing spark. 
 There all will be clear as the noon-day, 
 
 We'E know even as we are known. 
 For a light, which no storm can extinguish. 
 
 Will o'er our dull visions be throvm. 
 
 The wrath of the War-king forgotten ; 
 
 From battle and strife a surcease ; 
 The soldier, who died for his country, 
 
 Will rest on the bosom of Peace. 
 The prisoner, who pined in his dimgeon, 
 
 Whose heart with dumb agony stirred, 
 Will walk in the simlight of Freedom, 
 And no sound of oppression be heard. 
 
304 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 THOMAS JORDAN. 
 
 In connection with J. P. Pryor, Esquire, General Jordan^ ap- 
 peared, in 1868, as the av&orof Tlie Campaigns of Lieutenant- 
 General N. B. Forrest, and, of Forrest s Cavalry ; with portraits, 
 maps, and illustrations. The work was published in Cincinnati 
 and St. Louis, and had a large share of popularity where the 
 events narrated and illustrated had their scene, — in the west. 
 It is an octavo volume of six hundred and twenty-five pages. 
 It appeared also in New York, from the press of Blelock & Co. 
 
 General Jordan is a Virginian ; as is also Mr. Pryor. I am 
 not aware that either of them has appeared as an author elsewhere 
 than upon the occasion just mentioned. General Jordan's war- 
 record, his connection with General Beauregard as his Chief of 
 Staff, his distinction as a bureau officer, and his recent career 
 in Cuba, are matters belonging rather to tlie history of the wars 
 than to that of literature. 
 
 ANTHONY M. KEILEY. 
 
 Of Mr. Keiley, as an author, his readers have occasion to 
 learn something in the one volume he has published, it being 
 autobiographical, in one sense. It appeared from the press of 
 Blelock & Co., during the year 1866 ; and was entitled In Vin- 
 culis ; or the Prisoner of War, and the author is styled simply 
 A Virginia Confederate. 
 
 From a contemporary periodical, I extract the following his- 
 tory of the origin of this work : — 
 
 " On the 9th June, 1864, General Butler ordered a simulta- 
 neous attack on Petersburg, by Generals Gilmore and Kautz,— 
 the former commanding the infantry and the latter the cavalry. 
 For some reason not well understood. General Gilmore did not 
 ' come to time,' and, as a consequence, General Kautz withdrew 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 305 
 
 after obtaining some slight advantages. In the trenches, on that 
 ■ day, were a number of tlie gray-haired fatliers of the " Cockade " 
 City, several of whom were slain in battle, ^.nd others carried 
 into a dreary and almost hopeless captivity. Amongst tlie 
 prisoners captured by the enemy was the author of this volume, 
 a lawyer by profession, and a discharged soldier of Lee's army. 
 
 " He was several months in prison, first at Point Lookout and 
 subsequently at Elmira, New York. He has given us here, in 
 brief compass, his experiences of prison-life, and while there are 
 grave defects of style in the composition of the work, there is 
 also much to interest the reader.'' 
 
 As a poem characteristic of the times, I ^uote from this 
 volume Stonewall Jackson's Way, a camp songj which Mr. 
 Keiley calls the " best camp song of the war : " — 
 
 Come, men, stack arms ! File on the rails. 
 
 Stir up the camp-fire bright ; 
 No matter if the canteen fails, 
 
 We'll make a roaring night; 
 Here Shenandoah crawls along, 
 Here burly Blue Riidge echoes strong, 
 To swell the brigade's rousing song 
 
 Of" Stonewall Jackson's way." 
 
 We see him now — the old slouched hat 
 
 Cocked o'er his eye askew ; 
 The shrewd, dry smile — the speech so pat. 
 
 So calm, so blunt, so true. 
 The "Blue-Light Elder " knows 'em well; 
 Says he, " That's Banks, he's fond of shell ; 
 Lord save his soul 1 we'll give lifm ■ " well 
 
 That's "Stonewall Jackson's way." 
 
 Silence ! ground arms ! kneel all ! caps off 1 
 
 Old Blue-Light's going to pray ; 
 Sti-aftglfe the fool that dai-es t6 scoff ! ' 
 ■' Attention! it's his way ! 
 Appealing from his native sod, 
 " Hear us, in power. Almighty God ! 
 Lay bare thine aim, stretch forth thy rod, 
 
 Amen." That's Stonewall's way. 
 
3o6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTB. 
 
 » 
 
 He's in the saddle now ! Fall in 1 
 
 Steady, the whole brigade ! 
 Hill's at the ford, cut off; we'll win 
 
 His way witli ball and blade. 
 What matter if our shoes are worn ? 
 What matter if our feet are torn ? 
 Quick step ! we're with him ere the dawn 1 
 
 That's Stonewall Jackson's way. 
 
 The sun's bright glances rout the mists 
 Of morning — and, by George ! 
 
 Here's Longstreet struggling in the lists. 
 Hemmed in an ugly gorge. 
 
 Pope and his Yankees, whipped before, 
 
 " Bayonets and grape !" hear Stonewall roar. 
 
 "Charge, Stuart ! pay off Ashby's score. 
 In Stonewall Jackson's way." 
 
 Ah ! maiden, wait, and watch, and yearn, 
 For news of Stonewall's band ! 
 
 Ah ! widow, read with eyes that burn. 
 That ring upon thy hand ! 
 
 Ah ! wife, sew on, pray on, hope on ! 
 
 Thy life shall not be all forlorn ; 
 
 The foe would better ne'er been bom 
 That gets in Stonewall's way. 
 
 J. LELAND KENNEDY. 
 
 This writer blends the three labours of writing, teaching, and 
 preaching. He is the author of an excellent volume of biogra- 
 phy, entitled The Southern Christian, a Life of the Rev. Mr. 
 Pierson. He teaches a"school of high rank in Anderson Dis- 
 trict, of South Carolina. He is a preacher, of, I believe, the 
 Methodist Church. His literary degree was taken in the South 
 Carolina College about twenty-five years ago. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 307 
 
 JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY. 
 
 The author of Horse-Shoe Hobitison is a native of Baltimore, 
 and was bom on Friday, the 2Sth of October, 1795. He 
 graduated in the College of Baltimore, in 181 2. He adopted law 
 as his profession, and took to politics ; -first as a legislator in 
 Maryland and afterwards as a leading whig in Congress. In 
 18 18 he commenced editiori^l life as editor of The Red Book, in 
 Baltimore. After some years, Mr. Kennedy came out in the 
 new rtle of author. His literary works are : ■ — 
 
 1. Swallow Barn, published in 1832. This book is a fiction, 
 stringing together a collection of sketches of rural life in Virginia, 
 as it was at the beginning of the present century. The story — 
 or, rather, the sketches — became popular. 
 
 2. Horse-Shoe Robinson; 1835. The hero of this story is a 
 Revolutionary soldier of South Carolina, — a hard-fisted black- 
 smith, honest, direct, blunt, and shrewd withal. 
 
 J,. Rob of the Bowl ; 1838. This is a pre-revolutionaiy story 
 of Maryland, in the days, of her founder, Calvert. 
 
 4. The Annals of QuodliH^t, a. political burlesque, suggested 
 by the issues in the presidential campaigning of 1840, — the year 
 in which the Annals appeared- 
 
 5. Defence of the Whigs. 1844. 
 
 6. Life of William Wirt/ 184^. This is a eon amore work 
 — the biography of a devoted friend ; comprising correspondence, 
 and forming two good-sized optavo volumes. 
 
 7. Nfltes of two visits to £uroj>.e; the exact title, or titles, not 
 accessible. i 
 
 8. Numerous brochures -^snch. as An Address issued by the 
 Protectionist Convention held in New York, in 1831 (this in 
 connection with Dutton of Massachusetts, and Ingersoll of Penn- 
 sylvannia) ; Addr-gss delivered before the Baltimore Society, in 
 1833; Eulogy on Wirt, in 1834.; Discourse, at the Dedication 
 of Greenmount Cemetery in 1839. 
 
3o8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Of Mr. Kennedy as a writer, Duyckinck in his Cydopadia 
 of American Literature thus speaks : " Mr. Kennedy writes 
 with dehghtful ease and freshness. His works are evidently the 
 natural product of his thought and observation, and are' per- 
 vaded by the happy genial temperament which characterizes' the 
 man in his personal relations. We have a full reproduction in his 
 volumes of the old Virginia life, with its old-time ideis of repose, 
 content, and solid comfort ; its' hearty out-door existence, and 
 the ' humours,' which are apt, in a fixed state of society, to de- 
 velop quaint features in master and dependents. The author's 
 books abound in delightful rural pictures, and sketches of charac- 
 ter, which, in easy style and quiet genial humour, recall the 
 Sketch -Book and Bracebridge Hall. The author has himself ac- 
 knowledged the relationship in the graceful tribute to Irving 
 which forms the dedication of the volume." 
 
 Mr. Kennedy has always been a staunch whig, a thorough 
 union man, and a conservative in general. He still resides in 
 his native city; though recently he made a tour in Europe.' He 
 holds the office of Provost of the University of Maryland j and 
 is Vice-President of the Maryland Historical Society ; and a 
 member of several learned associations. 
 
 MRS. ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM. 
 
 The editor of The Lotus, a literary magazine published in 
 Memphis, Tennessee, has been for several years favourably 
 known to readers of current Hterature. While yet a girf'in her 
 teens, she became the wife c5f a Mr. Bradford, who died a few 
 years afterwards. Her second husband, Mr. Ketchum, fell in 
 the Southern army, the first year of the war. A fire, upon the 
 eve of the war, destroyed a large portion of her competence ; 
 and the enemy finished what remamed, before the war had pro- 
 gressed far. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 309 
 
 It was thus that she has been driven to labour as a resort to 
 restore fallen fortunes. She has taught a Select Classical School, 
 as one means; but her pen has been her main stay. 
 
 Mrs. Ketchum is the author of three volumes, as follows : — 
 
 1. Nelly Bracken, a novel, published about 1856. Of this book 
 a western monthly magazine says : "It had quite a run, having 
 borne the test of criticism, and taken its place as one of the most 
 popular works of American literature. It contains specimens of 
 the finest word-painting ever written by an American authoress." 
 From the same authority I leam that tlie book is soon to be 
 issued in a new edition by a Southern pubhshing- house. The 
 author herself does not feel — and justly so — that diis book, the 
 production of a mere girl, is representative of her mature powers. 
 
 2. Rilla Motto, a romance written for The Xotus, published in 
 part, but suspended in consequence of the destruction by fire of 
 the Lotus establishment, in i860.. 
 
 3. Lotus-Flowers, — a volume of miscellaneous poems, now 
 ready for the press, but not yet published. 
 
 In person Mrs. Ketchum is small. To quote from a lady's 
 account of her, " She has a handsome forehead ; mouth large ; 
 large black eyes, beautiful more with brilliancy than with soft- 
 ness. She is a brilliant talker. In speaking once of some beau- 
 tiful woman, she said : ' Her features are so perfect, they seem as 
 if moulded by an artist ; and — [pausing a moment] — they were 
 shaped by an Artist ; and they certainly bear the impress of 
 His divine workmanship.' She is a glorious woman, and a 
 poetess." 
 
 The following verses are among the more recent poems of 
 Mrs. Ketchum. They are entitled April Twenty-Sixth , — a title 
 that will convey its meaning to many a western reader : — 
 
 Dreams of a stately land. 
 
 Where rose and lotus open to the sun. 
 Where greett savane and misty mountain stand. 
 
 By lordly valour won. 
 
3IO LIVrNG WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Dreams of the earnest -browed 
 And eagle-eyed, who late with banners bright. 
 
 Rode forth in knightly errantry to do 
 Devoir for God and Right. 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder, see 
 
 The crowding columns file through pass and glen ! 
 Hear the shrill bugle ! List the turbulent drum, 
 
 Mustering the gallant men ! 
 
 Resolute, year by year. 
 
 They keep at bay the cohorts of the world ; 
 Hemmed in, yet trusting to the Lord of Hosts, 
 
 The Cross is still unfurled. 
 
 Patient, heroic, true. 
 
 And counting tens where hundreds stood at first. 
 Dauntless for Truth, they dare the sabre's edge. 
 
 The bombshell's deadly burst. 
 
 While we, with hearts made brave 
 
 By their proud manliood, work and watch and pray. 
 Till, conquering Fate, we greet with smiles and tears 
 
 The conquering ranks of gray ! 
 
 O God of dreams and sleep ! 
 
 Dreamless they sleep ; 'tis we, the sleepless, dream. 
 Defend us while our vigil dark we keep. 
 
 Which knows no morning beam. 
 
 Bloom, gentle spring-tide flowers. 
 
 Sing, gentle winds, above each holy grave ! 
 While we, the women of a desolate land. 
 
 Weep for the true and brave ! 
 
 Many a heart has been touched by the following Christmas 
 poem about Benny. This Benny was the pride of his mother. 
 That mother was Mrs. Ketchum. On Midsummer's Day of 
 1867, that Benny, then a man, was smitten down in a few hours 
 by cholera. Referring to this terrible experience, The Southern 
 Home Journal says : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 311 
 
 " Struck down by this fearful shock, the life of his frail and deli- 
 cate mother for weeks hung, as it were, upon a thread ; and only 
 in the few last months have Mrs. Ketchum's friends dared hope 
 that her life, thus blighted before it had reached its meridian, 
 may yet be prolonged to comfort and rejoice all hearts by the 
 magic of her song. 
 
 " Mrs. Ketchum has one surviving child, Miss Nora Bradford, a 
 young girl of rare endowments, with a voice rivalling Gazzaniga's 
 in tone and compass. May she be spared to her mother ! " 
 
 With this piece of history I present the juvenile poem, as illus- 
 tive not only of Mrs. Ketchum's poetic skill, but also — and 
 mainly — as illustrative of her simplicity and purity of heart, and 
 her doting tenderness of soul : — 
 
 I had told him, Christmas morning, 1 
 
 As he sat upon my knee, 
 Holding fast his little stockings, 
 
 StuiTed as full as full coiild be, 
 And attentive listening to me. 
 
 With a face demure and mild, 
 That good Santa Klaus, who filled them. 
 
 Does not love a naughty child. 
 
 " But we'll be good, won't we moder? " 
 
 And from off my lap he slid, 
 Dialing deep among the goodies 
 
 In his crimson stockings hid ; 
 While I turned me to my table 
 
 Where a tempting goblet stood 
 Brimming high with dainty egg-nog. 
 
 Sent me by a neighbour good. 
 
 But the kitten there before me, 
 
 With his white paw, nothing loth. 
 Sat, by way of entertainment. 
 
 Slapping off the shining froth ; 
 And in not the gentlest humour. 
 
 At the loss of such a treat, 
 I confess, I rather rudely 
 
 Thrust him out into the street. 
 
312 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Then how Benny's blue eyes kindled ! 
 
 Gathering up the precious store 
 He had busily been pouring 
 
 In his tiny pinafore, 
 With a generous look that shamed me. 
 
 Sprang he from the carpet bright. 
 Showing by his mien indignant. 
 
 All a baby's sense of right. 
 
 "Come back, Harney !" called he loudly. 
 
 As he held his apron white, 
 "You sail have my candy wabbit !" 
 
 But the door was fastened tight ; 
 So he stood, abashed and silent, 
 
 In the centre of the floor. 
 With defeated look, alternate 
 
 Bent on me and on the dpor. 
 
 Then as from a sudden impulse 
 Quickly ran he to the fire. 
 
 And while eagerly his bright eyes 
 
 Watched the flames go high and higher, 
 
 In a brave, clear key he shouted, 
 ■ Like some lordly little elf, 
 
 "Santa Klaus ! come down the chimney. 
 Make my moder 'have herself ! " 
 
 " I will be a good girl, Benny, " 
 
 Said I, feeling the reproof. 
 And straightway recalled poor Harney 
 
 Mewing on the gallery roof. 
 Soon the anger was forgotten. 
 
 Laughter chased away the frown. 
 And they played beneath the live-oaks 
 
 Till the dusky night came down. 
 
 In my dim fire-lighted chamber 
 
 Harney purred beneath my chair. 
 And my play-worn boy beside me 
 
 Knelt to say his evening prayer : 
 "God bess Fader, God bess Moder, 
 
 God bess Sister,".,— then a pause. 
 And his sweet young lips devoutly 
 
 Murmured " God bess Santa Klaus !" 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 313 
 
 He is sleeping. Brown and silken 
 
 Lie the lashes, long and meek, 
 Like caressing, clinging shadows, 
 
 On his plump and peachy cheek-; 
 And I bend above him weeping 
 
 Thankful tears, oh, undefiled ! 
 For a woman's crown of gloiy, 
 
 For the blessing of a child ! 
 
 Mrs. Ketchum's chirograph indicates delicacy, modified by 
 earnestness; constancy of impressions; and large hope. 
 
 MRS. SUE PETTIGRU KING. 
 
 Among the graceful, airy, and piquant writers of fiction in 
 the South, Mrs. King stands clearly first. Her books are all 
 societal, sketchy, and full of P'rench ; about sore-hearted women 
 and gay life, coquetry, ill-assorted loves, with worse-assorted 
 lives; abounding in sharp and sparkling conversations and 
 quarrels, racy repartees, and brilliant banter ; manifesting con- 
 stantly a tendency to the style known as gay and festive, with a 
 strong soupQon of satire upon the conventional respectabilities, 
 and with a decided flavour of mots ct double entendre. 
 
 Her published works are these : — 
 
 1. Busy Moments of an Idle Woman. This collection of 
 stories appeared in book form in 1854. The opening story, 
 Edith, as well as some of the others, deals with beings of fashion- 
 able life in Charleston. 
 
 2. Lily. This volume — a novel in the author's favourite vein 
 and style — appeared in 1855. 
 
 3. Syhna's World, — and, envolumed with that story, a series 
 of shorter stories, under the running title of Crimes which the 
 Law does not reach. This appeared in 1859. 
 
 4. Gerald Gray's Wife. This spirited story appeared, or at 
 
 27 
 
314 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 least a portion of it, in The Field and Fireside, a Southern 
 literary weekly of that day, during the war of secession, in 1863 
 or 1864. It was produced in book fonn, after the war, about 
 1866. 
 
 Mrs. King is a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and is a 
 daughter of the Hon. James L. Pettigni, probably the most able 
 and distinguished jurist of his day. She is eminently a lady of 
 society — a leader of the ton. Her eyes are grey, and of won- 
 derful power ; her hair brown, and would have been tlie pride 
 of Homer's heroine of heroines ; her features vifs ef mobiles; her 
 presence in general indicates an active genius, without repose ; 
 manner cultivated, easy, empressie — tout d, la frangaise. 
 
 Her genius is womanly ; woman-of-the-world-ly, it may be, but 
 still very womanly. Eugene de Mirecourt never wrote a more 
 absurd thing — which is saying a great deal — than when, in 
 concluding his sketch of Rosa Bonheur, he announced this 
 aphorism, Le genie n'a point de sexe. 
 
 Mrs. King's home has always been in Charleston ; and, until 
 the end of the late war, she lived there, doing the most attractive 
 fashionable watering-places in a tour during the summer months. 
 
 In 1865 she was said to hold a position in the Treasury De- 
 partment, in Washington. 
 
 In March, 1866, she was announced as about to appear as a 
 reader at a Matinee, in New-York City. 
 
 MAXIMILIAN LaBORDE, M.D. 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century, Dr. LaBorde has been 
 connected with the State College of South Carolina. His most 
 important work, as an author, is a History of that institution. 
 And this circumstance tends to make more intimate in the 
 pubUc mind the association of the professor with the college. 
 
 Dr. LaBorde is a descendant of an ancient family of Bor- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 315 
 
 deaux, France, whence his father emigrated to America, subse- 
 quently to the Huguenotic movement. He was bom in the 
 village of Edgefield, South Carolina, on the sth of June, 1804. 
 His academic education was received in his native village ; first, 
 at the school of Robert L. Armstrong, and, later, at the academy 
 of Chancellor Caldwell, at which he was prepared for college. 
 He entered the Junior class of the South Carohna College, in 
 1819 ; graduated there in i'82i ; and read law two years in the 
 office of McDuffie and Simkins, at Edgefield ; but, being too 
 young for admission to the bar, he could not apply at that time ; 
 and, before attaining his majority, certain influences made hini 
 study medicine. He entered the Medical College of Charleston 
 in 1824 ; and was a member of the_;&-j-/ class, that graduated in 
 1826. He practiced his profession in his native village ; was at 
 one period a member of the State Legislature; and in 1839 was 
 elected Secretary of State, upon which he moved to Columbia, 
 the capital. For many years, in Edgefield, he was editor of The 
 Advertiser, of that place ; and has all his life contributed largely 
 to periodical literature; The Southern Quarterly Review, Russell's 
 Magazine, and The Courant, being the journals for which he 
 wrote most. In 1841 he was elected a trustee of the South 
 Carolina College; and in 1842 was chosen Professor of Logic 
 and Belles Lettres in tiie same. Through all- the fortunes and 
 changes of that institution to the present time, he has been a 
 professor, though the chair he fills has undergone modifications 
 several times. 
 
 Apart from his professiqnal labours. Dr. LaBorde has been a 
 working man in several otlier departments of life ; an important 
 one, of which extra duties has been performed, in his capacity 
 as Hegent of the State Lunatic Asylum, in which he is now 
 President of the Board of Regents. The position calls for a vast 
 deal of unseen and unpaid-for work-in the form of occasional 
 and annual reports, memorials to the Legislature, and things of 
 that kind. 
 
 During the war he devoted his energies with great zeal and 
 
3i6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 success to the interests of the soldiers. Under his auspices was 
 established and conducted an organization, called the Central 
 Association, of which he was chairman. The Association re- 
 ceived, from all parts of the State, all manner of supplies, 
 clothing, and comforts for the soldiers in the field from that 
 State, and forwarded them to the armies, and there distributed 
 tliem to the soldiers. To devise means, and carry on this 
 immense transportation scheme, which often amounted, in 
 matter transported, to several car-loads a week, required an 
 indomitable energy, a clear, practical mind, and an untiring 
 industry, possessed by few men in so high a degree as by Dr. 
 LaBorde. These services were all given gratuitously ; and their 
 kind, their success, and their spirit, are all characteristic of their 
 author. 
 
 At the close of the war, in 1865, the South Carolina College 
 was changed in name and function, the new institution being 
 styled the University of South Carolina. In this reorganization, 
 Dr. LaBorde was put in charge of the School of Rhetoric, Criti- 
 cism, Elocution, and English Language and Literature. That 
 order of things prevails at the present time. 
 
 As a writer, Dr. LaBorde is represented by the following 
 works : — 
 
 1. Introduction to Physiology. A text-book prepared for class- 
 use in the college at a time — 1855 — when the author taught 
 physiology. Besides the regular presentation of tlie subject in 
 hand, which is done with great force and clearness, the volume 
 contains admirable discussions upon hygiene, climates, and 
 Slimmer resorts. 
 
 2. History of the South Carolina College. An octavo that 
 appeared in 1859. This is the author's magnum opus, as stated 
 above. It includes sketches, biographical, literary, and critical, 
 of the presidents and professors of the college, together with 
 catalogues and important statistical matter of various kinds. 
 Of this work a contemporary critic very justly writes : — 
 
 " Dr. LaBorde's style is singularly chaste, while he yet avoids 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 317 
 
 the fault of dryness ; but no glow of imagination, no flush of 
 fancy, can betray him into meretricious ornament, or the sple7t- 
 dida vitia of even some of our best writers. Those of our 
 readers who have perused with profit and pleasure his articles 
 in The Southern Quarterly will be equally instructed and charmed 
 by the volume before us. The mere matter of collecting facts, 
 marshalling dates, putting down numbers, and arranging names, 
 is not the object of this volume. Upon these dry bones he 
 has breathed a living spirit, and the History of the College 
 passes before us on these pages, like some splendid panorama. 
 
 We were struck particularly with the manner 
 
 of his introduction to his sketch of Dr. Cooper, — a man who 
 was regarded by his friends as the most injured being in the 
 universe, and, we presume it will hardly be denied at this day, 
 who was pursued bitterly by those who differed with him. 
 After admitting the difficulty of the task, Dr. LaBorde says : 
 ' The passions of the day are gone for ever. The grave has 
 silenced alike the voice of censure and of praise. The preju- 
 dices of enemies, the partialities of friends, no longer exert their 
 influence. Another generation has succeeded, and the calm 
 inquiry of truth and justice can alone have interest.' This is 
 the spirit of the entire volume. It is indeed the crowning 
 element of the personal character of the author, that he is a man 
 without prejudice. Hence, in his estimate of men, and espe- 
 cially of those who are dead, his desire seems to be always to 
 render to all strict historic justice." 
 
 While the book contains no formal sketch of its author, the 
 reader finds an admirable reflected likeness of him in the spirit 
 with which he sketches others ; in the appreciative and cordial 
 tone; in the keen perception; in the varied discussiojjs on 
 diverse points, and, above all, in the enlarged views and cathoUc 
 charities that pervade the work. 
 
 The Hon. Benjamin F. Perry, subsequently — in the transi- 
 tional government just after die war — governor of die State of 
 South Carolina, thus writes of this work : — 
 27* 
 
3i8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " The South Carolina College and the State of South Carolina 
 are uiider great obligations to Dr. I.aBorde for his labours and 
 success in tracing, from its foundation up to the present time, 
 the history of this noble institution, and sketching, in such 
 graphic terms, its presidents and professors. These portaitures 
 of character are worthy tlie pen of Plutarch. How beautifully 
 it gives the high and commanding character of the eloquent and 
 gifted Maxcy, the first and most revered president of the college ! 
 How truthfully is told the life and character of the learned 
 utilitarian infidel. Cooper ! . . . . The sketch of Barnwell 
 is that of an accomplished scholar, statesman, patriot, gentle- 
 man, and Christian. The character of the brilliant, eloquent, 
 generous Preston is drawn in terms which would do credit to the 
 finest sketches of Macaulay. The pure, virtuous, and learned 
 Henry is described with feelings which go to the heart of the 
 reader, and produce an admiration and sympathy for the man. 
 The analysis of the learning, character, and mind of the won- 
 derful Thornwell, displays surpassing ability as a writer and 
 scholar. A just tribute is well paid to the character of Dr. 
 Lieber, whose mind, stored with all learning, ancient and 
 modern, has given himself a world-wide fame. The character 
 of Bishop Elliott is well drawn, noble in person, noble in intellect, 
 noble in every Christian virtue. The sketch of the deeply- 
 lamented Nott is a lovely one. There are many drawn with 
 equal truth and beauty, who honoured the college as professors, 
 and who are now honoured by the charming historian." 
 
 Since the change of the college to a university, the author has 
 prepared a supplement, bringing down the history to the close 
 of the former institution in 1865, thus completing the History 
 of the College; and leaving to future pens the History of the 
 University. This Supplement, I understand, is ready for pub- 
 lication. 
 
 3. Story of Lethea and Verona. This is a simple domestic 
 story, written for the author's young daughters, and inscribed to 
 them. It was not in the proper sense published, but was 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 319 
 
 printed in i860. The Preface speaks of the story thus : "It is 
 a tale of love ; not of the sickly sentimentaUty of the novel, but 
 of a love springing from the very depths of the human affections, 
 and embracing in its comprehensive grasp the Great Father of 
 us all and universal humanity.'' 
 
 CLIFFORD ANDERSON LANIER. 
 
 It was in 1867 that Mr. Lanier made his debut as an author. 
 Thorn-Fruit, a novel — Number Three, in a series of Select 
 Novels by Southern Authors — appeared late in that year. As 
 the work of so young a- man, this novel promised well. The 
 following is a brief notice of it that I clip from a Southern 
 weekly, — Southern Society, of Baltimore, — written upon the 
 appearance of the book : — 
 
 " While we gladly welcome all the signs of intellectual activity 
 in the South, we are bound to say that it might have been better 
 for the fame of our author, had he observed the Horatian maxim, 
 and waited seven years before giving his work to the world. 
 There are as many signs of haste in the composition of the 
 book as there are of the writer's short apprenticeship to litera- 
 ture, and, this being the case, it might be unfair and premature 
 to criticise severely the faults in conception and style. How. 
 ever, this book gives promise of a better from the same hand- 
 The scene is laid in stirring times, and, for the most part,_ in the 
 so-called confederacy ; though, after an exciting bout of blockade 
 running, we stay awhile in Nassau, and then pass over to the 
 Island Queen of the Antilles, whose charms seem to exercise 
 the greatest influence on the susceptible heart of the author. 
 The story gradually brings us back to the starting point, a 
 country home, where, after a sad death-bed scene, we take leave 
 of all the surviving characters." 
 
 There is very httle praise about this, but- it is pretty near the 
 
320 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 truth ; and I venture that Mr. Lanier himself, in a few years, will 
 not feel warranted in speaking so favourably of it. 
 
 Mr. Lanier's first attempt at Uterature was both ambitious 
 and early — a tragedy at tlie age of eleven. He had the good 
 sense, however, to burn this before it reached a conclusion. 
 This was in 1855, the ambitious author having been born on the 
 24th of April, 1844. Griffiin, Georgia, is his native place; 
 tliough, in his infancy he was removed to Macon, where he at 
 present resides. At fourteen he entered Oglethorpe University, 
 at Milledgeville, in his native State, where he had been two 
 years, when the war of secession broke in upon his studies, and 
 interrupted his education. The war and its scenes of excite- 
 ment and rapid changes followed, during which he led an active 
 life. He entered the Southern army as a private ; but was, ere 
 long, transferred to the Signal Corps. He was assigned signal 
 officer of the blockade-runner Talisman, and in that eventful 
 capacity made two successful trips between Wilmington and 
 Bermuda. The Talisman was wrecked in December, 1864; 
 and the ciew, rescued by The Orville, found it impossible to 
 enter any Atlantic port in the Confederacy, and made way to 
 Galveston, Texas, where they were landed. Young Lanier 
 made his way, through seven weeks of weary journeying, to 
 Macon, only in time to be surrendered, at the close of the war, 
 in 1865. 
 
 Mr. Lanier is a younger brotlier of Professor Sidney Lanier, 
 mentioned elsewhere in the present volume. 
 
 His second novel is entitled Two Hundred Bales, and indi- 
 cates more careful preparation than his first did. 
 
 His chirograph indicates an' untiring and restless activity, a 
 want of precision, and an aspiration as vague as it is violent. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 321 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER. 
 
 This young writer has recently appeared in the field of letters. 
 It is since the war, I believe, that he first appeared in print at all. 
 
 His first novel is still fresh in the public attention, having ap- 
 peared late in the year 1867. It is entitled Tiger-Lilies — 
 without, as far as I can see, any very striking reason for tlie same 
 — and is a spirited story of Southern hfe, beginning just before 
 the war, and closing with the war. The earlier scenes are among 
 the mountains of Tennessee ; later shifting with the Southern 
 army to Virginia ; and having an echo or two of European ad- 
 venture. The author disclaims making the bloody sensational 
 his style ; and yet we have a little murder and some pretty melo- 
 dramatic touches. Upon this point the author, in his preface, 
 says : " This book declares itself an unpretending one, whose 
 interest, if it have any, is not a thrill of many murders nor a titil- 
 lation of dainty crimes. That it has dared to waive this interest, 
 must be attributed neither to youthful temerity nor to the seduc- 
 tion tliat lies singing in the grass of all rarely-trodden paths, but 
 wholly to a love, strong as it is humble, for what is beautiful in 
 God's Nature and in Man's Art."' 
 
 The story is entertaining, and the style lively. The latter ia 
 paragraphical and exclamationary ; and in a remote way — in its 
 mingling pedantry and raillery, grotesquely together sometimes — 
 it reminds the reader, remotely and just a little, of the Sketch- 
 Book of Meister Karl. Italian, French and German words 
 and phrases abound throughout the work. The book is pub- 
 lished in New York, and bids fair to secure a goodly measure of 
 success in the way of popularity. 
 
 Besides these. Professor Lanier has produced quite a number 
 of poems, bearing invariably strong marks of the a,uthor's individ- 
 uality. I find tlais terse little poem, entitled Barnacles, in tlie 
 Round Table of New York. 
 
32 2 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I. 
 My soul is sailing through the sea, 
 But the past is heavy and hindereth me. 
 The past hath crusted cumbrous shells 
 That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells 
 
 About my soul. 
 The huge waves wash, the high waves roll. 
 Each barnacle dingeth and worketh dole. 
 
 And hindereth me from sailing. 
 
 II. 
 Old Past, let go and drop in the sea 
 Till fathomless water cover thee ! 
 For I am living, but thou art dead; 
 Thou drawest back, I strive ahead 
 
 The Day to find. 
 Thy shells unbind ! Night comes behind, 
 I needs must hurry with the wind 
 
 And trim me best for sailing. 
 
 Longer, and really more in our poet's prevailing vein is The 
 Tournament^ being the right pleasant joust betwixt heart and 
 brain which I find published in tlie same journal. I give the 
 original poem entire ; to which a continuation was subsequently 
 written : 
 
 I. 
 Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies, 
 *' And the knights still hurried amain 
 
 To the tournament under the ladies' eyes, 
 Where tlie Jousters were Heart and Brain. 
 
 II. 
 Flourished the trumpets : entered Heart, 
 
 A youth in crimsoti and gold. 
 Flourished again : Brain stood apart. 
 
 Steel-armoured, dark and cold. 
 
 HI. 
 Heart's palfry caracoled gayly round, 
 
 Heart tra-li-ra'd merrily; 
 But Brain sat still, with never a sound. 
 
 So cynical-calm was he. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 323 
 
 This second visit was more distinctly a tour of travel than the 
 first. She saw botii society and the local celebrities ; but spent 
 the main portion of her time at sight-seeing proper, taking so- 
 ciety incidentally. 
 
 It was in an animated conveirsation with Lamartine, during 
 this second tour, that that great poet and thinker advised 
 Madame LeVert to write, and to write a book of travels. His 
 words are memorable, — "You can fill with pleasure the hearts 
 of your nation by describing what you have seen to them as you 
 are now delighting me. When the excitements of your tour are 
 over, and you are once more quietly at home, will you not re- 
 member, madame, what I have said, and employ your leisure in 
 giving to the world a few souvenirs of yeur European life?" 
 
 M. de Lamartine was right. 
 
 Madame LeVert remembered these words of advice, and 
 wrote, accordingly, her Sonvenirs of Travel, a charming book of 
 two duodecimo volumes. This appeared in 1858. 
 
 Its success was immediate and decided. 
 
 It is in the form of familiar letters to her mother ; and is the 
 freshest and sunniest of all books of travel. It is written without 
 study or restraint, and comes gushing and free from the heart — 
 a heart in which the sunlight of childhood seems still to linger. 
 
 A Southern poetess — Mrs. L. Virginia French — has given 
 us, in one sentence, a graphic portraiture of both the author and 
 her Souvenirs: " She speaks from a full heart of the beautiful in 
 Nature and Art, of old and stirring associations, of social traits, 
 and of the welcome of friends ; and, in all kindness and honesty, 
 endeavours to share with others the delightful impressions which 
 she has enjoyed." 
 
 The spontaneousness and gushing naturalness of Madame 
 LeVert's style are thus characterized by die same graceful pen : 
 " She writes as the bird sings — because its heart is gushing over 
 with melody; she writes as the flower bloomy — because it is 
 bathed in dew, fanned by the. breeze, and kindled up by the 
 sunshine, till it biu'sts its inclosing petals, and lavishes its fragrance 
 and sweet life upon the air." 
 
324 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Confederates. Thence he made his way home chiefly afoot. 
 The war closed in a very short time ; and in the stringent times 
 that followed, our author betook himself to teaching as a private 
 tutor, and to such other pursuits as the times made available. 
 Meanwhile he was writing Tiger-Lilies, which he published, as 
 already stated, about the close of 1867. Near the same time he 
 was elected Principal of an Academy at Prattville, Alabama; 
 where he now is. 
 
 Prof Lanier's special passion in study has been metaphysics; 
 and in art, music. His skill with the flute has been pronounced 
 well-nigh wonderful. He learned his German mainly from a 
 pocket dictionary while in the anuy in Virginia. 
 
 His chriograph is rapid, light, and consistent, — indicating 
 freedom from conventionalities of thought and a young man's 
 irksomness of restraint, — a passion for adventure, with marked 
 self-possession, — a fondness for display, but a horror of hum- 
 buggery. 
 
 JOSEPH LeCONTE, M.D. 
 
 Professor LeConte is a native of Georgia ; but has been for 
 ten or twelve years connected with the state institution of South 
 Carolina. He is to-day Professor of Chemistry, Pharmacy, Mine 
 ralogy, and Geology in the University of that state. He enjoys 
 the reputation of being one of the best, if not the very best, 
 lecturer that ever graced that institution. His power to enchain 
 the attention — the personal magnetism of his mind, that is to 
 say, — has rarely been equalled ; has certainly not been surpassed 
 in the lecture rooms of that institution for the last thirty years. 
 Besides his professional labours, he writes occasionally upon 
 scientific subjects for first-class periodicals, such as The American 
 Journal of Science ariid Arts, to which he has recently contributed 
 a series of papers on Optics in which he has advanced some new 
 views on vision. Morphology is another favourite theme witli 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 325 
 
 Iiim ; and one upon which some years ago he published some 
 papers that excited a great deal of attention, no less by the 
 valuable matter they contained than by the attractive style in 
 wliich they were written. He is felt to be one of the best aes- 
 theticians in the south ; and to be an exemplar of an equally and 
 highly educated man. 
 
 The only publication in book form of which he is tlie author 
 is a Text-Book of Geology, announced for tlie present year in New 
 York. He unites with his brother — Dr. John Le Conte, of the 
 University of California t— in producing a Text Book of Chemistry 
 published at the same time. 
 
 LEROY M. LEE, D.D. 
 
 Dr. Lee stands high among the writers of his church — the 
 Metliodist Episcopal — as a graceful and forcible writer. His 
 published works are : — 
 
 1. The Great Supper Not Calvinistk, — a duodecimo, that 
 holds the position of a standard work. 
 
 2. Advice to a Young Convert, — duodecimo. 
 
 3. Lifa and Times of the Rev. Jesse Lee, — octavo. 
 
 MISS AGNES LEONARD, 
 
 Mis? Leonard is mentioned as the author of a new novel 
 called Vanquished, published in 1867 by Carleton & Company ; 
 and as having another novel ready for, publication at an early 
 day, entitled Will d the Wisp. 
 
326 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. OCTAVI A WALTON LeVERT. 
 
 ['he most widely known and the most cordially appreciated of 
 the literary women of the south is Madame LeVert. 
 
 Born in affluence, having enjoyed the finest advantages in 
 culture, moving in the best circles of society in both America ; 
 and Europe, and a belle in the best sense t)f that word, by unani- 
 mous concession iii that beau tnonde, Madame LeVert found the 
 way to her autliorial dibut made easy and inviting. 
 
 She entered that easy and inviting way with characteristic 
 grace ; and found the debut a portal of flowers. 
 
 Miss Octavia Walton was the daughter of Colonel George 
 Walton, and was bom at Belle Vue, a country seat, near Augusta, 
 Georgia; but in her infancy was moved to Pensacola, Florida; 
 and there it was, amid the picturesque scenery of that tropical 
 land, her young soul waked to consciousness. 
 
 Her own language upon this point is too striking to be omitted 
 or replaced by any other. Her first memories, she writes to a 
 friend, were " of the orange and live-oak. trees, shading the broad 
 veranda ; and of the fragrant acacia, oleander, and cape jessa- 
 mine trees, which filled the parterre sloping down to the sea- 
 beach : of merry races with my brother along the whitei sands, 
 while the creamy waves broke over my feet, and the delicious 
 breeze from the gulf plfiyed in my hair : and the pet mocking- 
 birds in the giant oak by my window, whose songs called me 
 each morning from dreamland.*' 
 
 Are not these sunny memories of a tropical sky influencing 
 foreshadows of the genial soul that was blooming into hfe in 
 their midst ? 
 
 Her father. Colonel Walton, became Governor of the state of 
 Florida. 
 
 While yet a child the romance-loving Octavia chose for the 
 capital of that state its musical name — Tallahassee, a Seminole 
 word that means Beautiful Land. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 327 
 
 In her early girlhood she imbibed, ratlier than learned, three 
 languages — English) Spanish, and French. A knowledge of all 
 three grew up with her childhood; all three are her own as 
 thoroughly as if each had been her mother-tongue. Her won- 
 derful mastery of languages in later years is to be traced to 
 these early advantages. 
 
 In 1825, during his last visit to the United States, Lafayette 
 was charmed with her vivacity, her intelligence, and her pure 
 French. She was then but a child. He said : " I predict for her 
 a brilliant career.'' 
 
 Colonel Walton removed from Florida with his family to 
 Mobile, Alabama. 
 
 Mrs. Walton, with her accomplished daughter, made the tour 
 of the United States, while the daughter was yet quite a young 
 lady. They moved in the first circles of the leading cities in the 
 states. They won all hearts. 
 
 They spent much time in Washington, among the accom- 
 plished, the gifted, and the great in various ways. 
 
 It was during these earlier years of her life that Miss Walton 
 made the friendship of such men as Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and 
 Washington Irving. Noscitur a sociis. 
 
 In 1836, Miss Walton became Madame LeVert. Her hus- 
 band was Dr. Henry S. LeVert, of Mobile. 
 
 Madame LeVert spent a year in Europe during 1853 — '54. 
 She went originally by invitation of the Duke of Rutland, and 
 was accompanied by her father and daughter — the daughter, I 
 believe, who bears Madame' s own name. 
 
 Nature had given her titles of nobility, and she moved among 
 her peers in the selectest circles of British aristocracy. N. P. 
 Willis, the poet-editor, said of this tour of Europe: "There 
 probably was never a more signal success in the way of access 
 to foreign society, friendly attentions from the nobility, and 
 notice from roj'alty, than fell to the share of Madame LeVert." 
 
 In 1855, she again made the tour of Europe; on this occasion 
 accompanied by her husband and daughter. 
 
328 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 This second visit was more distinctly a tour of travel than the 
 first. She saw both society and the local celebrities : but spent 
 the main portion of her time at sight-seeing proper, taking so- 
 ciety incidentally. 
 
 It was in an animated conversation with Lamartine, during this 
 second tour, that that great poet and thinker advised Madame 
 LeVert to write, and to write a book of travels. His words are 
 memorable, — " You can fill with pleasure the hearts of your nation 
 by describing what you have seen to them as you are now de- 
 lighting me. When the excitements of your tour are over, and 
 you are once more quietly at home, will you not remember, ma- 
 dame, what I have said, and employ your leisure in giving to the 
 world a few souvenirs of your European life?" 
 
 M. de Lamartine was right. 
 
 Madame LeVert remembered these words of advice, and 
 wrote, accordingly, her Souvenirs of Travel, a charming book of 
 two duodecimo volumes. This appeared in 1858. 
 
 Its success was immediate and decided. 
 
 It is in the form of familiar letters to her mother ; and is the 
 freshest and sunniest of all books of travel. It is written without 
 study or restraint, and comes gushing and free from the heart — 
 a heart in which the sunhght of childliood seems still to linger. 
 
 A'southern poetess — Mrs. L. Virginia French — has given us, 
 in one sentence, a graphic portraiture of botii the author and her 
 Souvenirs: "She speaks from a full heart of the beautiful in 
 Nature and Art, of old and stirring associations, of social traits, 
 and of the welcome of friends ; and, in all kindness and honesty, 
 endeavours to share with others the delightful impressions whidi 
 she has enjoyed." 
 
 The spontaneousness and gushing naturalness of Madame 
 LeVerf s style are thus characterised by the same graceful pen: 
 "She writes as the bird sings — because its heart is gushing over 
 with melody; she writes as the flower blooms — because it is 
 bathed in dew, fanned by the breeze, and kindled up by the 
 sunshine, till it bursts its inclosing petals, and lavishes its fragrance 
 and sweet life upon the air." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 329 
 
 Miss Bremer, in her figurative way, calls her the " Magnolia 
 Flower of tlie South.'' Mr. Calhoun, in his literal way, calls her 
 " The gifted daughter of the South." Washington Irving says of 
 her : " She is such a woman as occurs but once in the course of 
 an empire." Mrs. Ellet says : "Madame Le Vert is perhaps the 
 only woman who has reigned as a belle in both hemispheres, has 
 received the homage of chivalrous admiration, alike in the 
 Northern and Southern sections of the United States, as well as 
 in the courtly circles of Great Britain and Continental Europe, 
 and who, at the same time, has never been assailed by the shafts 
 of envy or calumny. She has had a remarkable experience in 
 wearing the crown of beauty and genius — that it has been with- 
 out a thorn." 
 
 The most admired portions of the Souvenirs are those on the 
 Eruption of Vesuvius, the Coliseum, the Way over the Simplon, 
 the Brownings in Florence, Moonlight in Venice, and the Fare- 
 well to Italy. 
 
 But in all that Madame LeVert has written there is a life 
 that Madame Ida Pfeiffer could never throw into her Travels ; 
 that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe could never imitate, though she 
 did the title ; and that Miss Fredrica Bremer [peace to her recent 
 ashes !] could not give to her spirited personalities. 
 
 The general style of Madame I^e Vert's Souvenirs has already 
 been indicated. It is free, gushing and natural. The form in 
 which the work is written — familiar letters — cautions us not to 
 expect anything stately in tiie way of style. We expect the 
 composition to be easy, at least. This we find ; and, if some- 
 times there should appear a little too much ease, we should be 
 ungrateful to complain of it. 
 
 The Souvenirs of Travel is the only book Madame LeVert has 
 yet published. 
 
 In 1859, Souvenirs of Distinguished People ^^s announced as 
 in press, by a publishing house in New York. I am advised, 
 however, that circumstances of a personal character have pre- 
 vented her completing the work. 
 28* 
 
330 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Since the war, she has in preparation a book to .b^, called 
 Souvenirs of the War ; but it will probably not appear for 
 some time yet. 
 
 Among the occasional papers which Madame LeVert has 
 contributed to the periodical press since the war, I select from 
 the New- York Ledger the following on tlie Study of Languages, 
 as illustrative pf her airy and yet ornate style, its length being 
 within our limits : — 
 
 " Greek's a harp we loye to hejir; 
 Latin is a trumpet clear ; 
 Spanish like an organ swells ; 
 Italian rings its silver bells ; 
 France, with many a frolic mien, 
 Tunes her sprightly violin ; 
 Loud the German rolls his drum , , ■ , 
 
 ■When Russia's clashing cymbals come; 
 But Briton's sons may well rejoice. 
 For English is the human voice. 
 
 "There is not a more useful or dehghtful occupation for the 
 leisure hours of young ladies than the study of foreign languages. 
 It is the bridge spanning the deep waters which divide our own 
 from the rich and varied literature of other lands. When once 
 we have passed over it, a new world of enjoyment is open to us, 
 and we are quickly brought en rapport with the brilliant intellects 
 that have illustrated the grand and glorious in prose and' poetry. 
 
 " The best translation is but a shadow of the original. We. may 
 transplant a tropical flower to our climate, and cherish it with 
 infinite care ; still its blossoms will never possess the beauty and 
 fragrance of its own sunny clime. Thus it is wida foreign litera- 
 ture. To enjoy perfectly the nOble utterances of great minds, 
 we must read them in the language with which Genius first 
 draped them. The subtle charni of originaHty — the delicate 
 shades of thought, radiant and evanescent as the hues of the 
 rainbow, vanish away before the realities of a translation. 
 
 " A few hours, or even one hour, each day, snatdied from the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 331 
 
 exigencies of society, and devoted to the stiidy of any one of the 
 languages of Europe, would prove a profitable investment of 
 time, and yield a sure reward. Madame Campan did not con- 
 sider the education of a young girl completed because she had 
 left school. In one of her admirable letters of advice to a friend, 
 she writes : ' Continue still to devote daily some hours to study, 
 that you may speak fluently in German, sing sweetly in Italian, 
 and write charmingly in French.' 
 
 " Although the fashionable world may be very exacting and 
 absorb much of the attention of our young ladies, still even in 
 its whirl of gaiety there are many weary and listless hours, which 
 might be pleasantly occupied in learning a foreign language. The 
 Persian poet exclaims : ' Count every hour enjoyed as a treasure 
 gained.' May we not paraphrase this by saying : ' Count every 
 hour well employed as a treasure gained.' One of those weary 
 hours given each day to German would soon afford you tlie 
 satisfaction of reading the grandly eloquent works of Goethe, of 
 Schiller, of Jean Paul de Ricliter, of Heine, and other authors, to 
 which no translation can ever render justice. 
 
 " Many young ladies study Latin at school, hence the acquisi. 
 tion of any of die languages of Southern Europe would be vastly 
 facilitated. It is a fascinating occupation to follow all these 
 different streams which flow from the great fountain of die 
 Latui. 
 
 "First, die Spanish, — resembling it closely, with many of its 
 noble characteristics, while it is enriched with the sonorous 
 grandeur of the Moorish — vehement, expressive, and forcible, — 
 peculiarly powerful and majestic in oratory and declamation. 
 
 "Next, the Italian, — soft and graceful, the type of its own 
 rose-tinted skies and delicious clime. Music, which gives laws to 
 harmony, has chosen that idiom as the most exquisite for the 
 sweet breathings of its melody; while Poetry the sister spirit of 
 Music, revels in the full and swelling beauty of its tones. 
 
 "Then, the French, ^ — bright as die flight of a shining arrow, — 
 emphatic and concise, — ^the language of society and of diplo- 
 
332 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 macy. Through all changes of 'clime and time,' we still trace 
 tlieir allegiance to the Latin. It lingers around them as the 
 remembrance of a mother's love clings to the human heart. 
 
 "Among the happy visions which float in the future of nearly 
 every American girl is that of a visit to Europe ; therefore, to her, 
 a knowledge of foreign languages would be especially agreeable. 
 Many persons travel through classic lands with no more enjoy- 
 ment than the deaf and dumb, whose only pleasure is derived 
 from sight. How charmingly might a young lady utilise her 
 accomplishments as a linguist by contributing to the information, 
 the happiness, and the comfort of those of her family who accom- 
 pany her, and who, perhaps, have been too much occupied with 
 the hard actualities of life to acquire these languages. 
 
 "It is always a joy to woman's heart to know she increases the 
 happiness of the loved ones. Thus many amusing incidents and 
 sparkling conversations are constantly occurring as we travel 
 through ' lands beyond the seas,' which might be translated for 
 their enjoyment also. Pleasure and usefulness are combined in 
 the knowledge of foreign languages. It is an admirable training 
 for the memory, and genial exercise for the mind ; and the 
 acquisition of every new language is another delight added to 
 existence." 
 
 Madame LeVert did noble and successful work in behalf of 
 the Mount Vernon Association. 
 
 During the war she did the part of a true and generous woman. 
 
 Madame LeVert's home is in the heart of the city of Mobile, 
 upon Government street. It is one furnished with all that a cul- 
 tivated taste, with ample means at command, could ask — a 
 choice and extensive library, works of fine art, and the elegancies 
 in general in which refinement and wealth are wont to find 
 pleasure. She is there the centre and soul of a happy, though 
 not a numerous family. 
 
 In person Madame LeVert is short with appreciable embon- 
 point; has a face full, smooth and fair, and often aglow with 
 cheerful and kindly feeling; has hair and eyes both less than dark. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 333 
 
 She converses with probably more ease, grace and sympathy- 
 awakening vivacity and esprit, than any of her literary contem- 
 poraries in America. In conversation she gesticulates freely — 
 talks much d la fransaise, with her hands. 
 
 Her chirograph is light yet prononci, daintily feminine, dashing 
 and showy; wavy, witli a profusion of twirls — a wavy sweep at 
 the end of almost every word — yet every twirl is graceful ; this 
 peculiarity indicating an initiative habit of mind, with a lively 
 fondness for display. 
 
 SAMUEL YATES LEVY. 
 
 In 1856, appeared a play, in five acts, entitled The Italian 
 Bride, with the explanation on title page that it was " Written for 
 Miss Eliza Logan, and published for private distribution." The 
 local imprint is Savannali, Georgia. 
 
 The reception of TJie Italian Bride was favourable ; and, as 
 far as criticism delivered an opinion, it was commendatory. 
 
 The play deserved infinitely more attention than it received ; 
 for it had merit of high order ; was well-conceived, well-sustained 
 in development of plot, and abounded in brilliant passages. 
 
 It transpired, in the course of time, that the author of this 
 fine Soutliem drama was S. Yates Levy, Esquire, a lawyer of 
 Savannali — a man of extensive reading, and liberal culture. 
 His nationality is Hebraic ; his family remarkable for clever- 
 ness ; his father distinguisljed for his abilities ; his mother (of 
 EngUsh lineage) for her beauty and accomplishments ; himself, 
 for his belles lettres tastes and attainments, his engaging man- 
 ners, his astonishing memory, his ready and critical knowledge 
 of music, and his elegant conviviality. He was born about 
 1827 ; is tall, slender, of fair complexion and light hair, having 
 large, expressive blue eyes, and a massive forehead. Is married. 
 
 His chirograph is elegant, fluent, and rapid ; characters which 
 indicate the style of man I have described. 
 
334 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The following passage from a soliloquy in The Italian Bride 
 will serve as illustrative, in a limited way, of the style in which 
 the drama is written. 
 
 Hugo. 
 Such is the love of woman ! In her heart 
 She sets the object of her worship up, 
 As men do place an idol in a shrine. 
 On its sweet altar doth she sacrifice 
 All selfishness and every baser thought ; 
 And be the image hideous as the shapes 
 • Of swarthy India's faith, to her it seems 
 The symbol of all beautiful and good. 
 With what a fine contempt and noble scorn 
 She forced me back to mine allegiance ! 
 Her very form dilated with the strength 
 With which she urged her lover's innocence. 
 By heaven ! it surely cannot be that one 
 Whose soul is graced with such a woman's love 
 Could e'er be guilty of so base a crime. 
 I'll not believe it, and I hold it wrong 
 That e'er I did mistrust his noble nature. 
 
 The following piece of impersonation is a little extravagant, 
 but striking and well-put. : — 
 
 It cannot be ; hope cheats me now no more ; 
 But with a pitying smile doth point me out 
 My future comrades in this world of woe, — 
 The patient sisters born of Grief and Faith, 
 Pale Resignation leading dumb Despair. 
 
 I venture to give the following extracts of A Love-Letter, — 
 one of the author's minor poems, — although I am fully aware 
 that it is almost impossible to give part of a poem like this, 
 without injury to the authorj — without unfairly representing 
 him in his capacity of artist ; but the poem is too long to give 
 entire; and I could not get my own consent to leave it 
 unmentioned : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 335 
 
 I promised thee to write thee, and I write 1 
 
 What can I tell thee, dear, thou dost not know ? 
 
 O'er the pale camp is brooding tearful Night, 
 Save where the silvery moonlight's placid glow 
 
 Strilies through the solemn arches of the trees ; 
 
 And every voice of Nature hushed and dead, 
 Save the light whispers of the murmuring breeze. 
 
 And the lone sentry's never-ceasing tread. , 
 
 But in my heart there flutters a soft voice. 
 
 Responsive to some seraph's harp above. 
 Bidding my restless spirit, "Oh, rejoice ! 
 
 Be glad, O soul, be glad in thy great love ! 
 
 Be glad that thou hast clasped her yielding form ; 
 
 Be glad that thou hast heard her quivering sighs ; 
 Hast trembled in the whirl of passion's storm, 
 
 And fainted in the languor of her eyes. " 
 
 I know that thou canst never be mine own. 
 
 And that my love is but one lasting strife ; 
 For who can conquer, fighting, all alone. 
 
 The cold conventionalities of life? 
 
 I would I ne'er had met thee ! Better, dear. 
 Have worshipped the ideal of my mind — 
 
 A fairy vision — than have had appear 
 Thy lovely presence, and in it to find 
 
 All that my fancy long ago had loved ; 
 
 All that my spirit ever pined to see ; 
 All that my wayward pulses e'er had moved, 
 
 Incarnate and refined, sweet love, in thee ; 
 
 Yet Imow for me beams not that radiant face'; ■ 
 That all the future is one bitter strife ; 
 
 And weary solitude usurps the place 
 Of tljiee, my better, nobler part of life. 
 
33^ LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I would that tliou and I, far, far away, 
 Loitered all lonely on some murmuring shore, 
 
 Where all my love might open to the day. 
 
 And I shoidd know thou'dst never leave me more. 
 
 How I would cherish thee ! Ah, trust me, sweet. 
 No fairy, pillowed on a lily's breast, 
 
 Conld e'er lie softer in her fair retreat, 
 
 Than thou wouldst in these arms, thy sweetest nest. 
 
 I'd dweU in rapture on thy lightest word, 
 And revel in the perfume of thy sighs. 
 
 Own every wish of thine my heart's sole lord. 
 And read Love's triumph in thine orbed eyes. 
 
 And when the rosy-tinted morn alights, 
 
 And when the sun shakes down his golden hair, 
 
 E'en till he sinks behind the western heights, 
 I'd see love, shrined in Nature, everywhere. 
 
 Love, sighing in the murmur of the seas ; 
 
 Love, sleeping in the shady mountain nooks ; 
 Love, dancing to the music of the trees, 
 
 And laughing in the ripple of the brooks ; 
 
 Love, in the fragrance of each floviret fair ; 
 
 Love, in the azure of the smiling skies ; 
 Love in the mazes of my lady's hair. 
 
 And in the splendor of my darling's eyes. 
 
 JOHN HENRY LOGAN, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Logan was bom in Abbeville District, South Carolina, 
 about the year 1823. His father, of Scotch-Irish lineage, was 
 a physician, also, — Dr. John Logan. The son graduated with 
 distinction in the South Carolina College, in 1844, and in the 
 Charleston Medical College, a few years later. Besides the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 337 
 
 practice of his profession, or probably before attaining it, he 
 taught school some time, and for awhile was the editor of a 
 newspaper published at Abbeville. . During the war he was 
 surgeon in a confederate regiment ; and, since the war, has 
 moved to Talladega County, Alabama, where he is now engaged 
 in the practice of medicine. Is married. 
 
 The one book by which Dr. Logan is known as an author is 
 his History of the Upper Country of South Carolina, of which the 
 first volume appeared in 1859. The war prevented the prepa- 
 ration and appearance of the second and concluding volume. 
 Since the war, the author has gotten ready this second volume ; 
 but it has not been pubUshed. The work, as far as published, 
 is marked by great research, care, and thoroughness ; and 
 entitles the writer to an honourable position among the chroni- 
 clers of our early State history. He stands with Rivers, Ram- 
 say, Johnson, Simms, and Carroll. 
 
 AUGUSTUS BALDWIN LONGSTREET. LL.D. 
 
 Everybody has read Georgia Scenes; and laughed at Ned 
 Brace, and at Blossom and Bullet, and at Hardy Slow and Tobias 
 Swift, and Ransy Sniffle. 
 
 Everybody knows that Judge Longstreet wrote Georgia Scenes, 
 altliough I believe his name has never appeared upon any of the 
 numerous editions of it that have been published both North and 
 South. 
 
 Judge Longstreet has written two books: — 
 
 1. Georgia Scenes, Cfiaracters, Incidents, etc., in the first Half 
 Century of tJie Republic, by a Native Georgian. This book 
 appeared first in the South, a few years, I believe, prior to 1840, 
 in which year it appeared from the press of the Harpers, of New- 
 York. It was abundantly successful. Upon it rests almost the 
 entire reputation of its authca: as a humorist in literature. The 
 29 
 
338 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 reading public know its author in no other way. It was ru- 
 moured once that the author desired to supress the work, as of 
 too trivial a character for his graver positions in life. 1 havn't 
 the slightest idea that the rumour had the shadow of a foundation 
 in truth. I think so, knowing both the man and the book.- 
 
 I now desire to speak of both these, — tlie book first and then 
 tlae man. 
 
 The book is a collection of newspaper sketches of vulgar life 
 in Georgia, which were written, as the author explains in his 
 preface to the first edition, "in the hope that chance would 
 bring them to light when time would give them an interest," 
 rather than for the present generation. He wrote for posterity 
 these photographs of times and manners that were passing 
 away. 
 
 It will be observed that the author styles himself on the title- 
 page a Native Georgian, though he claims to have been bom in 
 South Carolina. 
 
 The book is replete with genuine humour. The humour is 
 broad, but it is irresistible. The world of readers has pronounced 
 it funny ; and, it is. 
 
 Among these scenes the character of Ned Brace and his 
 adventures, oddities, and drolleries, make up the most amusing 
 portion of the book. The Militia Drill is irresistibly amusing, 
 especially to such as have ever witnessed militia drills anywhere, 
 from its vivid life-likeness. There are several of the sketches, 
 however that are rather heavy than otherwise ; as, the Debating 
 Society and the Turn Out. Some have a touch of tlie repulsive ; 
 as, the Gander-Pulling and the Horse-Swap. Some, — even in 
 Georgia scenes, we venture to affirm, some, — are simply duU; 
 as, the Dance, and tlie Charming Creature. Often, too, the rev- 
 erend author concludes a funny or a bnital scene with a homijy 
 upon its morale ; and sermonising is constantly foisted into the 
 course of narratives, with apparently the best intention and the 
 worst effect In lliis the author seems to hold that it is whole- 
 some for the soul that, one should yawn from a sense of duty, 
 always after having laughed heartily. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 3J9 
 
 Georgia Scenes is Judge Longstreef s magnum opus. It com- 
 pares favourably- with most similar works,; though I consider it 
 less uniformly humorous than the Adventures of Simon Suggs, less 
 racy though less rude generally, than Wild Western Scenes, less 
 ludicrously natural tlian Major /one^s Courtship, and less 
 Western and therein less laughable thaa the Big Bear of Arkan- 
 sas ; but yet it has merits that none of these have in an equal 
 degree. . 
 
 2. Master WiUia7n Mitten; or a Youth of Brilliant Talents, 
 who Was ruined by bad luck. Published in Macon, Georgia, in 
 1864. Tliis story was commenced in 1849, while the author 
 was living in Jackson, Louisiana; was interrupted by the au- 
 thor's moving to some other lo.-aUty; resumed in The Southern 
 Field and Fireside about the begining of the war, and finished 
 during the war. Its title is a fair advertisement of its subject. 
 The author made his too-frequent: mistake of sacrificing too much 
 — in this case nearly everything — to his idea of moral lesson. 
 In attempting to adorn a moral he has spoiled a tale ; not much 
 of a one, it is true, but still — a tale. Poor Mitten has a time 
 bad enough in all conscience, but scarcely worse than he wUl 
 have who attemps to read through (without skipping) this dreary 
 string of adventures. To say that Master William Mitten is a 
 failure might mislead those who have no idea how terrible a 
 failure it is. It is the author's Moscow. 
 
 These two are all the books that Judge Longstreet has 
 written. But, beyond these, he has dene a great deal of writing 
 of an ephemeral character — for newspapers and for set occa- 
 sions. He has contributed to almost all the literary journals 
 that have existed in the South for the last forty or fifty years. 
 Those to which he conti-ibuted most appear to be The Methodist 
 Quarterly, The SoutJiem Literary Messenger, The Southern Field 
 and Fireside,, Tlie Magnolia, conducted by W. Gilmore Simms, 
 and The Orion, conducted by Wm. C. Richards. 
 
 He has delivered addresses, orations, speeches, harangues 
 on various occasions, in various places and with various degrees 
 of success. At the bar, in the ' pulpit, in the lecture-room, on 
 
34° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 tlie woolsack, in the legislature, no the hustings, in convention 
 and on the stump, he was always ready for a speech and with a 
 speech. The spirit was always in motion. I have heard him 
 respond to a serenade, preach a funeral sermon, deliver a college 
 commencement address and make a harangue over the tar-bar- 
 rel illuminations, pyrotechnic glorifications of seceding States. 
 He cou'ld never be scared up without a speech. 
 
 He has written a series of "Letters to Clergymen of the 
 Northern Methodist Church," on the subject of slavery. 
 
 He has written a series of sectional papers called "Letters 
 from Georgia to Massachusetts." 
 
 He has written a strong anti-know-nothing Letter during the 
 fever upon that subject. 
 
 He has written a famous Letter to the London Times, about a 
 negro in the International Congress. 
 
 He has written forty other Papers and Letters upon as many 
 different subjects. 
 
 From his multifonn works let us turn to the man. 
 
 Judge Longstreet was born on Monday, the 22d of September, 
 1 790. Where he was born is not so easy to say. Duyckink, in 
 his Cyclopmdia of American Literature, says he was bom in 
 Richmond County, near Augusta, Georgia. Appleton's New 
 American Cyclopeedia says he was bom in Augusta, Georgia, 
 Judge Longstreet himself says he was born in Edgefield District, 
 South Carolina. 
 
 It is the old story, mutatis mutandis, about Homer over 
 again. 
 
 He went to school lit e other boys, being a school-boy at Dr. 
 Moses Waddel's widely-known school ; a school famous half a 
 century or more ago, when educational institutions were few. 
 
 Our school-boy did not take to letters very cordially and 
 appears to have found book-learning rather an up-hill buaness. 
 George McDuffie was among his school-fellows. It is reason- 
 able to fancy those early years were rather void of interest 
 to our readers. 
 
 Young Longstreet giaduated at Yale College in his twenty- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 341 
 
 third year; and in his twenty-fifth was admitted to the bar in 
 Georgia, having commenced the practice of law, however, at 
 Litchfield, Connecticut. 
 
 In 182 1, at the age of thirty-one, he was a representative in 
 the Georgia Legislature from Greene County. In 182 1, he was 
 elected Judge of the Superior Court, and held that office for 
 several years, and finally declined reelection. He then resumed 
 the practice of law and was distinguished in those days for his 
 success in criminal cases. 
 
 In 1838, at the age of forty-eight, he became a minister of the 
 gospel of the Methodist Episcopal Church; and after a time 
 was stationed in Augusta, Georgia. 
 
 In 1839 he was called to the presidency of Emory College at 
 Oxford, Georgia; and he held that position for nine years. 
 
 In 1848, in his fifly-eighth year, he was invited to the presi- 
 dency of Centenary College in Louisiana, where he remained a 
 very short time. 
 
 The same year, I believe it was, he was invited to the 
 presidency of the University of Mississippi, at Oxford in that 
 state. He continued in this position about six years ; and gave 
 it up with a view of retiring to rural and private life and to 
 agricultural pursuits. But rest was not yet among the lots of 
 his life. 
 
 In 1857, in his sixty-seventh year, he was elected to the 
 presidency of the South Carolina College at Columbia in that 
 state. From this position he retired in 186 1. 
 
 During his presidency of the South Carolina College he was 
 sent as one of the two delegates to represent ■ the United States 
 in the great International Congress for the adjustment of weights 
 and measures, held in London diiring the summer of i860. A 
 negro was admitted upon the floor of this Congress, upon which 
 Judge Longstreet took offence and withdrew from the assembly, 
 and wrote a pungent and pithy letter to the London Times, 
 which caused no little stir at the time. 
 
 Since 1861, I believe^ he has resided in retirement and in as 
 much quiet as the turbulent spirit of war would allow, in the 
 
242 LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. 
 
 town of Oxford in nortliern' Mississippi. Early in life, but I am 
 unable to say alt what date, he was captain of a Militia beat 
 company. 
 
 Thus we see the subject of our sketch has played many parts 
 upon the stage of life. He is to day nearly seventy-seven years 
 old. A long life of industry arid usefulness, changing, but' active 
 and earnest, is drawing near its close. He has been a lawyer 
 and a Methodist preacher; a judge of the supenor court anda 
 professor of history ; an author and a president of colleges ; a 
 lectiirer and a delegate to an Intemationai -Congress ; a legisla- 
 tor and a feuilletonist ; a pamphleteer and a president of Univer- 
 sities : a train-band captain eke was he, and a Native Georgian. 
 
 He has been several of these at the same time. 
 
 During the later years of his varied labours, he has bten most 
 commonly known as Judge Longstreet; sometiines as Doctor 
 Longstreet; sometimes as President Longstreet; sometimes- as 
 the Reverend Mr. or the Reverend Dr. Longstreet; and the 
 students of the Soutli Carolina College knew him as Bullet. 
 Those who have read in Georgia Scenes the Horse-Swap will 
 see whence they derive it. The names being applied to the 
 author of Georgia Scenes is proof of the genius of that author. 
 
 It is the part of true genius to make names that stick so. 
 There may be no personal compliment implied in it, but it comes 
 of genius. Some children about his household, resident with 
 him, were called Buck-Shot. That was genius too ; because it 
 was funny. , 
 
 In person Judge Longstreet is decidedly not handscwne, He 
 is tall and slender. His face has humour in it, but it is anything 
 but handsome. If his patient heart had any gall in it, the com- 
 parison with Thersites would be unavoidable. 
 
 Earnestness and self-appreciation are the plaihest features 
 visible in his physiognomy — a deep lined map of curves and 
 corrugations, f 
 
 His chirograph is legibly devoid of ornament, and nervous. 
 It indicates closeness, want of caution, naturalness, limited sym. 
 pathies and carelessness. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 343 
 
 DANIEL BEDINGER LUCAS. 
 
 A volume published in Baltimore during the present year. 
 
 The Wreath of Eglantine and Other Poems — first presented 
 tlie name of Mr. Lucas to Southern readers, as the author of a 
 book; although his name had for several yeg.rs been familiar to 
 tlie readers of the poetry of periodicals. The volume was not 
 made up entirely of his own poems, however ; but consisted in 
 part, of poems by his sister. Of his poems The Statesman gives 
 this general opinion : " That they offer many points for decided 
 if not severe criticism, we are free to admit. That they have faults 
 in structure, in measure, and in illustration, no intelligent reader 
 will fail to discover. But in all of them will be traced not only 
 poetic emotion, but the true inspiration which finds its only utter- 
 ance in the language of beauty and harmony." And The States- 
 man seems disposed to say all that it can in his favour; and 
 probably has done so. ' • 
 
 Mr. Lucas is a Virginian. 
 
 Of the poems that I have seen, a very favourable specimen is 
 in The Land Where We Were Dreaming. For the present 
 purpose — that of illustrating the styleof the writer — the Min- 
 strel's song in the Song of the South will do better. After a 
 prelude the Minstrel sings : ' 
 
 The song of the South, with her free flag furled ! 
 
 My heart grows mute at the prayer ! 
 For the anthem would trouble the heart of the world. 
 
 Like the song of a fallen star !. 
 
 And they should remember that 'twas not alone, 
 
 'Gainst the odds of her Northern foe. 
 That she struck when the star of her victory shone, 
 
 Or sank in her hour of woe 1 
 
 But the Teuton and Celt, from the Shannon and Rhine, 
 
 And the Northman from Ottawa's banks^ 
 Came to barter their blood at Mammon's red shiine. 
 
 And filled up the enemy's ranks. 
 
344 ilVIt^G WRITERS OF THE SOUTir. 
 
 Kildare and O'Neal, these Sons would ye call. 
 Who for gold in the recreant bands. 
 
 The chains which are rusting in Erin's soul 
 Have fettered on Southern hands ? 
 
 Let the victory there, to the North remain. 
 And the same to the foreign powers ; 
 
 The South has enough, amid all her pain — 
 For the honour and glory are ours ! 
 
 So I'll hang my harp o'er the fresh turned sod. 
 On a bough where the rain-crow sings. 
 
 Till the breath of the South, like the Spirit of God, 
 Pour over my trembling strings. 
 
 D. R,,McANALLY, D.D. 
 
 Dr. McAnally, of the Methodist Church, is celebrated for 
 his extensive reading and enlarged pharity of mind. He was 
 bom oa the 17th of February, 1810, in Grainger County, X*- 
 nessee. After twelve years of service as a circuit and., district 
 preacher, he was called to the presidency of the East Tennessee 
 Female Institute, in Knoxville, which position he held for eight 
 years. In 185 1 he was appointed editor of the St. Louis Chris- 
 tian Advocatgy and continues in that position. He has laboured 
 a good deal in the cause of popular education. 
 
 He has published : — 
 
 1. Martha Laurens Ramsay. A biography of a lady of South 
 Carolina. 
 
 2. Life and Times of the Rev. William Ration. 
 
 3. Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel PattoHy D.D. 
 
 4. A Hymn-Rook. 
 
 5. A ^unday-Sfhool Manual. 
 
 If Dr. McAnally has published anything since the above, — 
 and I judge from the lapse of time that he has, — I have not 
 been able to ascertain the fact definitely. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 345 
 
 JAMES D. McCABE, JR. 
 
 The successful few in literature, who achieve substantial suc- 
 cess through literary pursuits, in the South, are very few. The 
 subject of the present sketch is one of that very few. 
 
 He was bom in Richmond, Virgipia ; and was educated partly 
 in that city, partly at the London Military Academy, at Urbana, in 
 Frederick County, Maryland, and partly at the Virginia Military 
 Institute ; which school he was compelled to leave before gradu- 
 ating, in consequence of the breaking down of his health — never 
 strong — by the severe-discipline of the Institute. He is a son of 
 the Rev. James D. McCabe, D.D., of Maryland, formerly of Vir- 
 ginia. The family is of Irish descent, and of very ancient date, 
 the founder of it having received the order of knighthood for his 
 services in the Crusades. The father of our author's great- 
 grandfather was the first white settler in the Cumberland Valley, 
 io Pennsylvania. James McCabe, the great-grandfather of our 
 author, was standing at the side, of General Montgomery when 
 he fell, at Quebec, and was tiie first to raise the fallen officer 
 from the ground. 
 
 James D. McCabe. Jr., commenced his literary career in his 
 fourteenth year, by writing for a country newspaper, — The 
 Abingdon Virginian,' — but his first regular production appeared 
 several years after that date. His publications are : — 
 
 1. Fanaticism and its Results; by a Southerner. This politi- 
 cal brochure appeared in i860, and was well received. 
 
 2. The Aide-de-Camp. This is a war-story, and appeared in 
 the spring of 1863. It appeared originally in running series in 
 Tlie Magnolia Weekly, a literary journal of Richmond; and 
 later, in pamphlet form. It had a fine sale, and was, in that 
 regard, quite a success. 
 
 3. Plays. During the years 1862 and 1863, three plays were 
 performed at the Richmond Theatre. The subjects were war 
 topics, suited to the popular feeling and the war-fever tastes of 
 
346 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the times. Their author now looks upon them as among his 
 literary sins ; and the literaiy world will doutjtless trouble itself 
 very little about them. 
 
 4. Life of Lieittenant-General.T. J. Jackson; iy an Ex-Cadet 
 appeared in 1863, a few months after General Jackson's death; 
 and an enlarged. and revised edition was brought out by a pub- 
 lisher in Richmond/ in the spring of 1864. Both editions were 
 well received, and paid ■well. 
 
 5. The Bohemian. A Christmas-Book, published in the win'- 
 ter of 1863. It is a composite volume, made up of xontribu.- 
 tions by tliree writers, ^- Mr. McCabe, Mrs. McCabe, and Mr. 
 Charles P. Dimitry,!^- contributing about equally. It consists 
 of stories and poifems, of each of Which Mr. McCabe wrote two. 
 
 6. A Memoir of General A. Sidney Johnston. This was a 
 brief memoir, written in 1864, from materials received from the 
 son, the staff, and personal friends of General Johnston. Pub- 
 lished in 1866; 
 
 7. Life and Campaigns of General Rob&'t jE. Lee. A hand- 
 some duodecimo volume of over seven hundred pages, with 
 steel plate and maps, published by Blelock and Company, of 
 New York and New Orleans, in 1867. The work has. since 
 passed into the hands of the National, Publishing Company, of 
 Richmond, Virginia, who are now the publishers. Of this work 
 a periodical critic has said : " The author has used care and 
 industry in collecting his materials. His style is not brilliant or 
 eloquent, but plain, clear, and forcible. There is no ambitious 
 effort at fine writing. Most of his estimates of public men, and 
 his oijinions on measures, will be accepted \ndthout demur. He 
 seems inclined, however, to disparage President Davis ; thinks 
 bis folly and obstinacy contributed largely to the loss of Ae 
 Southern cause." 
 
 8. The Gray-jackets. This is a compilation of the romance 
 and wit, and; humour of the late war. 1867. 
 
 9. The miscellaneous contributions of our author to periodi- 
 cal literature amount to a hundred and eighty-six stories and a 
 large number of poems. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 347 
 
 lo. A new historical wofkiis in course of preparation, to be 
 issued perhaps sirnultaneously with the present volume. 
 
 Among the poems of our author, T7ie Sword of Harry Lee has, 
 been probably the most popular; and it' deserves a high place 
 among the ballad poems of Ihewar. Jt is too long for insertion 
 entire, and;too consistent to bear bisection. 
 
 As a patt of the literary work of this writer, should . be men- 
 tioned two translations from the French of Octave Feuillet — 
 the Little Countess^ and Ouesta. These translations were made 
 and published during the war, — in 1863 and 1864, 1 believe. 
 
 In July, 1863, Mr. McCabe became editor of The Magnolia 
 Weekly, and held that position until Mairch, 1864. His editorial 
 management was eminently successful ; and the paper prospered 
 in an unprecedented manner under it. I consider successful 
 editing as one of the highest evidences of general literary ability. 
 Clearly more so than writing a book. 
 
 Since the war, Mr. McCabe has resided a great portion 
 of the time in the North; and at present resides in Brooklyn. 
 His home, in all the essential meanings of that word, is in the 
 South. And the South, to a Virginian, generally means the Old 
 Dominion. ' 
 
 W. GORDON McCABE. 
 
 Captain McCabe is one of the young writers of Virginia ; of 
 whom, judging from some poems produced about the close of 
 the late war, something well may be expected in the future. 
 He has contributed to The Southern Literary Messenger, of Rich- 
 mond, a variety of creditable things, — verses, essays, reviews, 
 sketches, and translations from the ecclesiastical I^atin poetry 
 of the middle ages. Among the finest of his productions, un- 
 questionably, are a poem, entitled Christmas Night of 1862, and 
 Nil Nisi Bonum, a memorial of Thackeray. There are those, 
 however, who consider his Dreaming in the Trf^ches, a poem 
 
348 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of the war, his best; and some maintain &iz.t/ohn Pegram, a 
 threnody on the death of that gallant officer, is better than any 
 other. 
 
 Captain McCabe left the University of Virginia in April, 1861, 
 soon after the secession of his native State, to join the Southern 
 army, in which he served from the beginning to the close of 
 the war, thirteen months as a private, and afterwards with dis- 
 tinction as an officer in the artillery branch of the service. 
 
 Captain McCabe' s chirbgraph is one of the finest that I have 
 seen. It indicates liberal and careful self-ciilture, an acutely 
 sensitive Ksthetical mind, and more originality than any other 
 young writer in the Soufh. In the quality of isolation of mind, 
 and in the faculty of forgetting personalties in literary estimates, 
 and in literary work generally, I have not seen it surpassed since 
 Edgar A. Poe. Without having seen any of his critiques, I am 
 prepared to believe and predict that criticism is his proper field 
 of literary labour. 
 
 I give the Christmas Night of '62, as fairly illustrative of his 
 poetry : — 
 
 The wintry blast goes wailing by, 
 The snow is falling overhead, 
 I hear the lonely sentry's tread, 
 
 And distant watch-fires light the sky. 
 
 Dim forms go flitting through the gloom. 
 The soldiers cluster 'round the blaze 
 To talk of other Christmas days, 
 
 And softly speak of friends and home. 
 
 III. 
 
 My sabre swinging overhead 
 Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow. 
 While fiercely drives the blinding snow. 
 
 And Memory leads me to the dead. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 349 
 
 nr. 
 My thoughts go wandering to and fro, 
 
 Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then, 
 
 I see the low-browed honie again. 
 The old hall wreathed with mistletoe. 
 
 And sweetly from the far-off years 
 
 Comes borne the laughter faint and low, 
 The voices of the Long Ago ! 
 
 My eyes are wet with tender tea^s. 
 
 I feel again the mother-kiss, 
 I see again the glad surprise. 
 That lightened up the tranquil eyes 
 
 And brimmed them o'er with tears of bliss, 
 
 VII. 
 
 As, rushing from the old hall-door. 
 She fottdly daisped her wajrward boy,.' . 
 Her face all radiant with the joy 
 
 She felt to see him home once more. 
 
 My sabre swinging on the bough 
 Gleams in the watch&re's fitful gloWp 
 While fiercely drives the blinding snow 
 
 Aslant upon my saddened brow. 
 
 Those cherished faces all are gone 
 Asleep within the quiet grayes. 
 Where lies the snow in drifting waves. 
 
 And I am sitting here alone. 
 
 X. 
 
 There's not a comrade here to-night 
 But knows that loved ones far away 
 On bended knees this night will pray : 
 " God bring our darling from the fight." 
 30 
 
350 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 XI, 
 
 But t](ieie are none to wish me back. 
 For me no yearning prayers arise, 
 The lips are mute and closed the eyes,. 
 
 My home is in the bivouac 
 
 In another vein is Dreaming in the Trenches, which is dated 
 Fegram's Battali<fn Artillery, A.N. V., December, 1864; — 
 
 I picture her there in the quaint old room. 
 Where the fading fire-light starts and falls. 
 
 Alone in the twilight's tender gloom 
 
 With the shadows that dance on the din^lit walls. 
 
 Alone ; while those faces look silently down 
 From their antique frames in a grim repose — 
 
 Slight, scholarly Ralph, in his Oxford gown, 
 And,staimch Sir Alan, who died for Montrose. 
 
 There are gallants gay, in crimson and gold, 
 There are smiling beauties with powdered hair. 
 
 But she sits there, fairer a thousand-fold. 
 Leaning dreamily back in her low arm-chair. 
 
 IV. 
 And the roseate shadows of fading light 
 
 Softly clear steal over the. sweet young face. 
 Where a woman's tenderness blends to-night 
 
 With the guileless pride of her knightly race. 
 
 Her small hands lie clasped in a listless way 
 
 On the old " Romance," which she holds on her knee, 
 " Of Trish-am," the bravest of knights' in the fray, 
 "And Iseult," who waits by the sounding sea. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 351 
 
 And the proud, dark eyesrvirear a spftgDed look, 
 As she watches thq dying embers fall-r- 
 
 Perhaps she dreafos of the kiiights in tte book. 
 Perhaps bf the picttites that wsSik on the wall 1 
 
 vil. 
 What fancies, I wonder^ are throagiiig her brain, 
 
 For her cheeks flush warm ;tnth a criinson glow. 
 Perhaps — ah me, Jhpw foolisjii apd vain ! . 
 
 But I'd give my life to believe it so 1 
 
 'vtrt.-'' 
 .MVell, whether I ever march home againi 
 
 To ofifer my love tad a stainless name, 
 Or whether I <^ie at the head of iny men, 
 
 I'll be true tq the end, aU the same. 
 
 MRS. LOUISA S. McCORD. 
 
 Mrs. McCoRD is a dau^iter of the HOH. Langdon Cheves; 
 and was born in South Carolina, in i8io. 
 
 In 1840 she was married to Colonel David J. McCord, a 
 distinguishe;d lawyer of that state, who became so widely and 
 favourably known by his Reports in Law and in Eqpity, and his 
 Statutes at Large of South Carolina. 
 
 In 1855 Mrs. McCbrd became a widow. Her, residence is 
 Columbia. < She entered with her Usual spirit of unselfish devo- 
 tion into the late war; gi^ng her talents, her means, and her 
 manual assistance, in every possible way^ to advance the cause 
 of the South. Her mind is Roman in its cast, and heroic in its 
 energy. 
 
 Her published works are :■ — 
 
 I. My Dreapis^, A collection of her fugitive poems, mostly 
 lyrical. Published in Philadelphia, 1 848. .r 
 
3S2 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 2. Sophisms of the Protective Policy, — a translation of Bas- 
 tiat's work. Published in 1848. 
 
 3. Caius Gracchus, — a. i].-v&-z.ct tragedy. Published in 1851. 
 
 4. Contribtftions to The Southern Quarterly Review, DeBojt/s 
 Review, and The Southern Literary Messenger. These have 
 never been collected into a volume, but would make one of 
 vigorous and charactCTistic thoughts. Some.of the subjects dis- 
 cussed — generally in reviewing some contemporary book itpon 
 the subject — are: Justice and Fraternity, the Right to Labour, 
 Diversity of the Races aiid its bearing upon Negro Slavery, 
 Negro and White Slavery and their differences, Enfranchisemen 
 of Woman, Uncle Tom's, Gary on the Slave Trade, Nfgro Mania, 
 Woman and her Needs, British Philanthropy and American 
 Slavery, and Charity which does not begin at Home; also a 
 Letter to the Duchess of Sutherland from- a lady of South 
 Carolina. 
 
 These are all living, manly subjects ; no rose-water and kid- 
 gloves about them. Strength and independence of thought mark 
 all that she has written. 
 
 From My Dreams, I select The Voice of Years, and give it 
 entire as illustrative of both tone and art : ^ ■ . 
 
 It floated by, on the passing breeze, 
 
 The voice of years : 
 It breathed o'er ocean, it wandered through earth, 
 It spoke of the time when words had birth, 
 When the spirit of God moved over the sea ; 
 When earth was only a thing — to be, 
 And it sighed, as it passed on that passing breeze. 
 
 The voice of years. 
 
 From ocean it came on a murmuring wave, 
 The voice of years : 
 And it spoke of the time ere the birth of light ; 
 When earth was hushed 'neath the ocean's might. 
 And the waters rolled, and the dashing roar 
 Of the angered surge owned not yet the power. 
 Which whispers in that murmuring wave, 
 The voice of years. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTff. 353 
 
 From earth it came, from her mmost deep, 
 
 The voice of years : 
 It murmured forth with the bubbling stream. 
 It cariie like the sound of a long-past dream — 
 And it spoke of the hour ere Time had birth. 
 When, living thing moved not yet on earth, . ' 
 And, solemnly sad, it rose from the deep; 
 
 The voice of years. 
 
 From heaven it came, on a beam of light. 
 
 The voice of years : 
 And it spoke of a God who reigned alone. 
 Who waked the stars, who lit the sun. 
 As it glanced o'er mountain, and river, and wood. 
 It spoke of the good and the wonderful God ; 
 And it whispered to praise that God of Light, 
 
 The voice of years. 
 
 It howled in the storm as it threatening passed, . 
 
 The voice of years : 
 And it spoke of ruin, and fiercest might ; 
 Of angry fiends, and of things of night ; 
 But raging, as o'er the Earth it strode, 
 I knelt and I prayed to the merciful God, 
 And methought it less angrily howled as it passed. 
 
 The voice of years. 
 
 And it came from yon moss-grown ruin gray. 
 
 The voice of years : 
 And it spoke of myself, and the years that were gone. 
 Of hopes that were blighted, and joys which were flown 
 Of the wreck of so much that was bright and was fair ; 
 And it made me sad, and I wept to hear> 
 As it came &om yon moss-grown ruin gray. 
 
 The voice of years. 
 
 And it rose from the grave with the song of death. 
 
 The voice of years : 
 And I shuddered to hear the taJe it told. 
 Of blighted youth, and hearts grown cold ; 
 30* 
 
354 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOJJTa. 
 
 And anguish and sorrow which crept to the grave 
 To take from the spoiler the wound that he gave. 
 And sadly it rose from that home of death, 
 : The voice of years. 
 
 But again it passed on the passing breeze, 
 , . The voice of years : 
 
 And it spoke of a God, who watched us here, 
 Who heard the sigh, and who saw the tear ; 
 And it spoke of mercy, and not of woe ; • 
 There was love and hope in its whispering low ; 
 And I listened to catch, on that passing breeze. 
 The voice of years. 
 
 And it spoke of a pain that might not last. 
 
 That voice of years : 
 And it taught me to think that the God who gave 
 The breath of life, could wake from the grave ; 
 And it taught me to see that this beautiful eart^ 
 Was not only made to give sorrow birth ; 
 And it whispered, that mercy must reign at last, 
 
 That voice of years. 
 
 And strangely methought, as it floated by. 
 
 That voice of years 
 Seemed fraught with a tone from some higher sphere. 
 It whispered around me, that God was near ; 
 He spoke from the sunbeam. He spoke from the wave. 
 He spoke from the ruin, He spoke from the grave, 
 'Twas the voice of God, as it floated by. 
 
 That voice of years. 
 
 This is earnest, natural, and direct ; nothing feeble or even 
 flowery — nothing Corinthian, but all Doric. 
 
 From Cuius Gracchus, a brief scene must suffice; I select a 
 dramatic interview between Cornelia and her son : — 
 
 Gracchus, 
 Wolves breed not lambs, nor can the lioness 
 Rear fawns among her Utter. You but chide 
 The spirit, mother, which is bom from you. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THM SOUTH, 355 
 
 Cornelia. 
 Curb it, my son ; and watch against ambition I . 
 Halfrdemon and half-god, she oft misleads . 
 With, the bold face of virtue. I know well . 
 The. breath of discontent is loud in Rome ; 
 And a hoarse^ murmuring vengeance smoulders there 
 Against the tyrannous rule which, iron-shod. 
 Doth trample out man's life. The crisis comes. 
 But oh I beware, my son, how you shall force it 1 
 
 Gracchus. 
 Nay, let it come, that dreaded day of doom. 
 When by the audit of his cruel wrongs 
 Heaped by the rich oppressor on the crowd 
 Of struggGng victims, he must stand condemned 
 To vomit- forth the ill-got gains that gorge 
 His luxury to repletion. Let it come ! 
 The world can sleep.no longer. Reason wakes 
 To know man's rights, and forward progress points. 
 
 Cornelia. 
 
 By reason le^ and peaceful vrisdom nursed. 
 All progress is for good. But the deep curse 
 Of bleeding nations follows in the track 
 Of mod ambition, which doth cheat itself 
 To find a glory ih its lust of rule ; 
 While piling private ill on public wrong. 
 Beneath the garb of patriotism, hides . 
 Its large-mawed cravings ; and would thoughtless plunge 
 ; To eveiy change, howeyer riot waits, 
 With feud intestine, by mad uproar (Iriven, 
 And red-eyed murder,, to reproach ;the deed. 
 Death in its direst forms doth wait on such. 
 
 - ' Gracchus. 
 
 Man livefe to die, and there's no better way 
 To let the shackled spirit find itsfreedom 
 Thau in a^glorious combat 'gainst oppression. 
 I would not grudge the breath lost in the struggle. 
 
356 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Cornelia. 
 Nor I, when duty calls. I am content, 
 May but my son prove worthy of the crisis ; 
 Not shrinking from the trial, nor yet leaping 
 Beyond the marked outline of licensed right ; 
 Curbing his passions to his duty's rule ; 
 Givmg his country all, — life, fortune, fame. 
 And only clutching back, with miser's care. 
 His all-untainfed honour. But take heed 1 
 The world doth set itself on stilts, to wear 
 The countenance of some higher, better thing. 
 'Tis well to seek this wisely-; but with haste 
 Grasping too high, like child beyond its reach. 
 It trips in the aspiring, and thus falls 
 To lowlier condition. Rashness drags 
 Remorse, and darkest evil in her train. 
 Pause, ere the cry of suffering pleads to Heaven 
 Against this fearful modkery of right ; 
 This license wild, which smothers liberty 
 While feigning to embrace it. 
 
 Gracchus. 
 
 Thought fantastic 
 Doth drapery evil thus with unsketched ills. 
 No heart-side maid nor dream-struck boy am I 
 To scare myself with these. There's that in man 
 Doth long to rise by nature. Ever he. 
 Couching in lethargy, doth wrong himself. 
 
 Cornelia, 
 Most true and more. I reverence human mind j 
 And with a mingled love and pride I kneel 
 To nature's inborn majesty in man. 
 But as I reverence, therefore would I lend 
 My feeble aid, this mighty power to lead 
 To its true aim and end. Most often 'tis 
 When cjrowjds do wander wide of right, and fall 
 To foul misuse of highest purposes, 
 The madness of their leaders drags them on. 
 I would not check aspiring, justly poised ; 
 But rather bid you "on " — where light is clear. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 357 
 
 And yovir track plainly marked. I scorn the slang 
 
 Of "greedy populace," and "dirty crowd," 
 
 Nor slander thus the nature which I bear. 
 
 Men ill the aggregate not therefore cease 
 
 Still to be men ; and where untaught they fall, 
 
 It is a noble duty to awake 
 
 The heart of truth that slumbers in them still. 
 
 It is a glorious sight to rouse the soul. 
 
 The reasomng heart that in the nation sleeps ! 
 
 And Wisdom is a laggard at her task 
 
 When but in closet speculations toiling 
 
 She doth forget to share her thought abroad 
 
 And make mankind her heir. 
 
 In person Mrs. McCord might pereonate Cornelia herself. 
 Her chirograph is eminently characteristic, legible, round, 
 free, bold, strong, and slightly English. It is "unadorned and 
 nobly plain;" and, like person, intellect and character, altpgether 
 Doric. 
 
 SILAS Mcdowell. 
 
 A notice of this eccentric septuagenarian, I am free to con- 
 fess, belongs less to literature proper, than to the more severely 
 practical departments of life ; but yet, there is a Franklin-like 
 energy, perseverance, Tvill, or genius, — whatsoever you wish to 
 call it, — that has determined into literary form so much of his 
 peculiar life, • — a life in so many ways contradictory of that rest 
 usually regarded as the necessary condition of literary utterance, 
 that I can but regard him, or his example at least, as eminently 
 worthy of mention in a work like this. And yet my mention 
 must be so brief, that I can hardly hope it will bring forward my 
 subject so clearly, as, in order to be available for my purpose, it 
 should be presented. 
 
 Let us see. 
 
 Silas McDowell was- bora — as he himself- chooses to -ex- 
 press it — "on the north border of York District, South Carc^ina, 
 
3S8 LIVrNG WRIfMRS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 in a log eabin twenty feet by sixteen, on the 1 6th day of May, 
 
 I79S-" 
 
 At two and a half years of age, we find him an orphan and a 
 pauper ; a few years later, digging at Dil worth's spelling-book, 
 with fine success; at six, reading and reciting Grayfs Elegy ; at 
 eight, the pet, "curly-haired, black-eyed darling" of some lady- 
 patron, who gave him access to a Congressman's miscellaneous 
 library, which he read helter-skelter, taking novels first ; at 
 eleven, composing a lampoon pass in rhyme for a patrol- 
 punished negro firiend ; from eleven to fifteen clerking in a dry- 
 goods shop, in a country town ; at fifteen, again thrown out, by 
 the death of his employer, upon the world, without money or 
 work ; a student for three sessions in the Newton Academy, in 
 Buncombe County, North Carolina, working mornings, evenings, 
 and Saturdays, to help pay his board ; at seventeen, going all 
 over -Charleston, in vain, seeking work ; finally, apprenticing 
 himself to a tailor for four years ; leaving Charleston, at twenty- 
 one, " a strictly chaste and temperate young man, who had never 
 used his Maker's name profanely on his lips" ; working ten years 
 at his trade, in Morganton, in the Old Nordi State, giving all the 
 time^ four hours a day, to reading and study ; working four years 
 more in Asheville ; marrying a niece of an old school-fellow 
 (David L. Swain) ; 1830, moving to his farm in Macon County, 
 in the western corner of North Carolina ; serving sixteen years 
 as Clerk of the Superior Court ; five years as Clerk and Master 
 in Equity ; studying geology, mineralogy, zoology, and botany, 
 with scientific explorers of that wild region, at the age of forty or 
 fifty years ; and, when asked by a learned professor, recently, at 
 what college he had graduated, pointing to the bold mountains 
 that enclose his honaestead valley, exclaiming : " These wild 
 mountains a,re the only college a,t which my name has ever been 
 entered as a student ! " 
 
 Isn't all that full of power ? 
 
 But what has. it to do with literature? 
 
 Something. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 359 
 
 Something in that.it is the living out of which has grown the 
 few but characteristic — because strong, natural, and eccentric 
 — productions from this earnest man's pen. 
 
 He has not written mucli j but what he writes tells. 
 
 The example of most permanent form, of his pen-work, is to 
 be found in his Theory of the T&ermal Zone, which was published 
 in i}c\R. Agricultural Reports (of the general government) for 1861. 
 The account, from which I am giving tliese facts, claims for Mr. 
 McDowell the discovery of the Thermal Zone, — a zone " that 
 traverses the atmosphere at a certain height, that height being 
 governed by tlie degree of frigidity of the atmosphere ; " and that 
 he demonstrated the correctness of his theory upon philosophical 
 principles. The account continues : ^' The utiUty of the dis- 
 covery is this : Where mountains enclose a valley, the thermal 
 belt, or no-frost stratum, does not lie more than two hundred 
 and fifty feet abovethe level of the valley ; and this is found to 
 be the true home of the grape, as it is a warm, dry atmosphere, 
 that fully develops their fine -quality, without any danger of 
 spring frosts killing the young fruit-germs. And here the grape 
 has never been known to rot." This theory and its proof were 
 submitted to Mr. Thompson, Secretary of the Interior in i860 ; 
 and through him found its way into the published reports of the 
 general government. 
 
 But Mr. McDowell has a peculiarly happy faculty of. de- 
 scribing scenery — the bold mountains,- their wild crags, and 
 their nestUng valleys. He iirst arose above the horizon of 
 literature by writing a sketch descriptive of some picturesque 
 scenery among the- grand old mountains of his home-country, — 
 a sketch,. entitled Abov€ tjie Clouds^ that was extensively copied 
 in journals of that day, — in the-year 1829. 
 
 This sketch called for others, and others followed ; some of 
 which appeared in The Philadelphia Saturday Courier. These 
 pen-pictures described Table-Rock, Csesar's Head, Hawkbill 
 Peak, Hickory^ut Gap, and a number -of other places in the 
 two Carolinas. He has written for journals, upon Pomology and 
 
360 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Horticulture, of which he has practical as well as theoretical 
 knowledge, and upon Sheep Husbandry and Cheese-making. 
 
 Mr. McDowell is still a vigorous old man, and writes with a 
 lively pen. His is one of those minds that Nature has done 
 vastly more for than Art ever can, — one of the Ben-Franklin 
 type, that dares do everything his own way, and generally does 
 it right, although once in a while treading upon the toes of the 
 conventions, both in science and literature. 
 
 His residence is in or near the town of Franklin, in the south- 
 western comer of North Carolina, among the cloistered grandeurs 
 of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 
 
 JOHN McGILL, D.Q. 
 
 The Right Reverend Doctor McGill was bom on the 4th of 
 November, 1809 ; was ordained priest in the Catholic Church, 
 on the 13th of July, 1835 ; lived fourteen months in Lexington, 
 Kentucky, and fourteen years in Louisville of the same State ; 
 and on the loth of November, 1850, at the age of forty-two, was 
 consecrated Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, which position he 
 holds to-day. While in Louisville, he edited The Catholic Advo- 
 cate during seven years. 
 
 Bishop McGill is a divine of practical mind, and one who 
 strikes at the living issues of theday. He is a man much loved 
 for his earnest piety and purity of character, as well as much 
 honoured for his learning, lucid thought, and eminent contro- 
 versial gifts. His works are : — 
 
 1. The Life of John Calvin. Translated from the French of 
 J. M. V. Audin, and pubHghed in Louisville. 
 
 2. The Origin of the Church of England, as represented in 
 Mcicaulay' s History, This was a controversy with the R«v. Mr, 
 Craik, Rector of Christ [Episcopal] Church, Louisville. 
 
Llt^ING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 361 
 
 3. Tlie True Church indicated to the Liqtnrer. Published also 
 in Louisville. 
 
 4. Our Faith the Victory. A summary statement of the 
 principal doctrines of the., Catholic Church. This work yas 
 written in Richmond duripg the war, because of the scarcity of 
 Catholic books during the blockade. It was published in Richy 
 mond during the war, an,d in Baltimore since the close of tlie 
 war. , , 
 
 Bishop McGill's chirograph is in no degree ornate; but indi- 
 cates a mind clear, direct, and confident,- — a style of writing 
 peculiar to those of clear spiritual sense, who reverence the old, 
 and are unusually sensitive to the character of architectural 
 evpresson. 
 
 MRS. JOHN P. McGUIRE. 
 
 Diarists, in all ages of the wqrld, have done valuable service 
 to the cause of history. A faithful record of the daily expe^ 
 riences of even the humblest individual becomes in time more 
 valuable than learned treatises upon the life and manners of a 
 people. 
 
 The times in which we live are to become of upusual interest 
 to future times ; and faithful records of these will ijicrease in 
 vaiue as we move down the stream of years. To this class of 
 faithful records belongs Mr^. McGuire's 
 
 Diary of a Southern Refugee, during the War, by a Lady of 
 Virginia, \vritten between the 4di of May, i86r, and the 4th of 
 May, 1865, — just four years, — and published in New York, in 
 1867. When written there was no thought of publication ; and 
 in this, to a great extent, consists the charm of the. style as well 
 as the value of the book. It is a close narrative of the author's 
 personal experiences and observations during that period. The 
 Diary was written at various places,^ her home at Tappahaa- 
 nock, Fairfax Court-riouse, Chantilly; Winchester, Richmond, 
 31 
 
362 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 
 
 Lynchburg, Ashland, and three or four other places of lessnote. 
 It tells simply, plainly, and directly, what a true Southern Chris- 
 tian woman felt, saw, and did, during those terrible years of 
 blood and trial. The sincerity and Uteralness give the volume a 
 living interest. It is a duodecimo of 360 pages. 
 
 Mrs. McGuire is a Virginia lady, the wife of an Episcopal 
 clergyman, resident now as formerly at Tappahannock, in the 
 County of Essex. She dedicates her book — the only one she 
 has written — "To my dear little Grandchildren, Nephews, and 
 Nieces." And the words bring to our minds a lady of the better 
 days of the Old Dominion, — days that, come whatever may of 
 the new prosperity of the new regime, -^ days that can come to 
 the Old Dominion no more. 
 
 MISS MARIA J. Mcintosh. 
 
 Both sections — the North and the South — have some claims 
 ^-to this writer. She was born in the South, and lived twenty' 
 years here; and has since then resided in the north. Her 
 nationality is of course Scotch. 
 
 She was born in the Uttle town of Sunbury, within five miles of 
 the coast, forty miles south of Savannah, in the state of Georgia, 
 about the year 1815. She lived twenty years, and received her 
 elementary education, at that place. 
 
 In 1835 she removed to New- York City to reside with her 
 brother, Captain Mcintosh, of the United States Navy. In two 
 years she lost her entire property in the financial crisis of that 
 year; and betook herself to authorship under the spur of pov-^ 
 erty. She chose the nam de plume of Aunt Kitty, and made it 
 famous by the production of a juvenile story entitled Blind 
 Alice. 
 
 In 1850 Miss Mcintosh spent about a year in one of the 
 mountain valleys of Switzerla,nd near Geneva. She the© re- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. 363. 
 
 turned to America, and has since 'then, I believe, continued to 
 reside in New York. 
 Her works are : — 
 
 I. Blind Alice. Published in 1841. 
 z. Jessie Graham. 1843; 
 
 3. Florence Arnott. 1843. ' 
 
 4. Grace and Clara. 1843. 
 
 5. Ellen Leslie. 1843. These five vbliimes made the author 
 a universal favourite with the young folks. Then she sought a 
 more ambitious field, and wrote books for grown folks. 
 
 6. Conquest and- Self -Conquest, appeared in 1844. , 
 
 7. Woman an Enigma, was published by the Harpers, in 
 1844. 
 
 8. Praise and Principle. 1845. 
 
 9. The Cousins. A kind of sequel to the series called Aunt 
 Kitty's Tales, — a collection comprising the first five mentioned 
 above. 
 
 10. Two Lives, or To Seem and To Be, — appeared in 1846, 
 with the real name of the writer; all the preceding having 
 appeared as Aunt Kitty's. In 1847 the series mentioned above 
 as Aunt Kitty's Tales was republished in one large volume. 
 
 II. Qharm^ and Counter-Char 7ns. 1848. 
 
 12. Evenings at Donaldson Manor. A collection of miscel- 
 laneous magazine, stories appeared in 1849. 
 
 13. Woman in America, her Work and her Reward, is by 
 some considered Miss Mcintosh's magnum opus. It shows more 
 thought, being speculative in its nature ; l)ut is rather radical in 
 its views of society, especially of society at the South. 
 
 ' 14, The Lofty and the Lowly is a tale of Southern life, about" 
 as true to life as one could write who felt in antagonism to the 
 system she was dealing with. It appeared' in 1853. 
 
 15. Violet, or the Cross and the Crown, — -appeared from a Bos- 
 ton house in 1857. It is a story of New England life, depend- 
 ing largely upon the *' chapter of accidents" for its incidents. 
 
 16. Meta Gray. A juvenile tale, appeared in 1858; and is 
 a story replete with pathos. 
 
364 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 It is said that all these books have been translated into 
 French. They assuredly have been largely circulated and read 
 in England. 
 
 Miss Mcintosh some years ago employed a portion of her day 
 in teaching, a portion in writing, and a portion at teaching the 
 Greek tragedies to a class at her own house. She continues 
 also to write poems; but they have secured for her no great 
 recognition as a poet, I believe. 
 
 ALBERT GALLATIN MACKEY, M.D. 
 
 The name of Dr. Mackey is so mixed up with the political 
 , issues of the day, since the war, that it is difficult to dissociate 
 it from those fierce issues, and to speak of him as a litt&ratetir. 
 
 Dr. Mackey iS a son of Dr. John Mackey, and was born in 
 1809, in the city of Charleston, South Carolina. He received 
 his diploma as M.D. about 1831. His graduating thesis, 
 written in Latin, received the award of a silver goblet, — the 
 usual prize for the best thesis in classes that graduate in the 
 South Carolina Medical College. He practiced his profession 
 a good many years. His greatest distinction, however, arose 
 from his activity in the Masonic fraternity. He was the Grand 
 Secretary and Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of South Carolina, 
 and wrote several works on the order, and edited some others. 
 His works are : — ' 
 
 1. A Mantial of the Lodge; or. Monitorial Instructions in the 
 Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master 
 Mason, arranged in accordance widi the American System of 
 Lectures ; to which are added the Ceremonies of the Order of 
 Past Master, relating to installations, dedications, consecrations, 
 laying of corner-stones, etc., etc. An octavo fully illustrated. 
 
 2. The Book of the Chapter; or Monitorial Instructions in the 
 Degrees of Mark, Past, and Most Excellent Master, and the 
 Holy Royal Arch. A duodecimo, fully illustrated. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTff. ^6$ 
 
 -'■'• 3. Cryptic Masettty.' A. 'iAsxiMaX.ai^Q. Council, or Monitorial 
 Instructions in the Degrees of Royal and Select Master, with an 
 additional section on the Super- Excellent 'Master's degree. A 
 dmodecirho, fully illustrated. > 
 
 4. A Text-Book of Masonic Jurisprudence/ illustrating the 
 written and unwritten Law of Free Masonry. A crown octavo 
 of 570 pages.: '' ' ' .' 
 
 5. Mackej^ s Masonic Ritualist; or, MdfiitOrial Instructions in 
 the Degrees from Entered Apprentice to Select Master. A 
 32mo., pocket edition. 
 
 d. Lexicon of Frie Musofiry. 
 
 7. The Mystic Tie; Or, Facts a:nd Opinions illustrative: of the 
 Character and Tendency of Free mstsonry. ' 
 
 8. The Symbolisms • of Free Masonry; illustrating and ex- 
 plaining its science and philosophy, its legefidsj myths, and 
 symbols. This work was copyri^ted in 1869. 
 
 Dr. Mackey' edited the Ahimdn Rezon; oi Book of Constitu- 
 tions of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free Masons of South 
 "Carolina. 
 
 His residence is Charleston. 
 
 MRS. GEORGIANA A. HULS.:^ >JcLEOD. 
 
 Mrs. McLeod is a daughter of Dr. Isaac Hulse of the United 
 States Navy, and was bom near Pensacola, Florida ; was early 
 left an orphan, and, while yet a girl, wrote verses and tales of fair 
 merit. She was married; to the Rev. Dr. Alexarider W. McLeod, 
 of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where tliey resided a few years. She is 
 to-day Principal of the Southern titerary Institute, Baltimore, a 
 select school for youjig ladies; find i^ devoting a good deal of 
 attention to literal?. : ■ , 
 
 She has published the following : — 
 
 T. Sunbeams and Shadows. Published by the Appletons, New 
 31* 
 
366 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 York, soon after completing her education, some time prior to 
 
 i8S3- 
 
 , 2.. Ivy Leaves from, the Old Homestead. This volume ap- 
 peared soon after her marriage — ia 1853 — aiid contains both 
 prose and poems. 
 
 ^. Thine and Mine.,. : 
 
 4. Sea-Drifts. A collection of moral stories embracing 
 poems, appeared in 1867, from the press of the Carters, New 
 York. 
 
 5. Bright Memories. 
 
 There is great similarity among these volumes. They are 
 eminently moral, sometimes religious, and always temperate in 
 being removed from the sensational and melodramatic, r Those 
 who dote on the Miss Braddon style of novel will call Mrs. 
 McLeod tame \ but those who enjoy the religio^odal style of 
 Miss Manning will pronounce Mrs. McLeod's books cliarming. 
 
 The following extract from The Mother's Prayer will very 
 well illustrate Mrs. McLeod's vein, as to morale and range, in 
 both prose and verse : — 
 
 Gently in my arms they laid him, 
 
 Like a lily pure and fair. 
 Violets 'neath the dark-fringed eyelids. 
 
 Silken ring^of soft, brown hair; 
 Beautiful for artist's limning. 
 
 Fragile as a new-bom flower, 
 Ohi how earnest was my prayer 
 
 For my darling in that hour. 
 
 All earth's richest and its rarest 
 
 Buds of beauty, gems of light. 
 Treasures won by art or science. 
 
 Were as nqthing in ray sight. 
 Not for all would I have bartered 
 
 This most beauteous, precious gift ; 
 Scarcely e'en to bless the Giver, 
 
 Could my eyes to heaven I lift. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 367 
 
 All that earthly love could lavish . 
 
 On its dearest and its best, 
 Did my heart already garner 
 
 For the baby on my breast. 
 In an hour I Uved a lifetime, — 
 
 Oh, how bright a waking dream 1 
 Passed from infancy to manhood. 
 
 In all hearts he reigned supreme. 
 
 RICHARD McSHERRY, M.D. 
 
 This author published a volume during the present year — 
 1869 — under the title oi Essays and Lectures, — a volume of 
 reviews, essays, and letters, collected from various periodicals. 
 These isapers are historical — as those upon The Early History 
 of Maryland, Mexico, and 3., Mexican Campaign Sketch; medi- 
 cal — as the Epistle on HomcBopathy, Hygiene, ind Health and 
 Happiness, — and miscellaneous. Dr. McSherry served in the 
 Mexican campaign, and thus acquired his personal knowledge 
 of that country. He is a Professor of the University of Mary- 
 land,, at Baltimore. 
 
 THOMAS W. McMAHON. 
 
 The author ol Cause and Contrast — a book upon the vexed 
 negro question — was at one time a resident of Richmond, Vir- 
 ginia. He is an Irishman by birth. Is a vigorous and inde- 
 pendent thinker, — one that will coine more and more into 
 favour, as the status of the negro is more and more exactly 
 defined in the minds of men. 
 
368 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 H. N. McTYE^ftE, RtJ. 
 
 Among the many writers upon the subject of slavery, Bishop 
 .J^cTyeire has the distinction of being almost,^ if not entirely, 
 alone, in writing upon the dutiefe of Slave-oivners. His little 
 work upon this subject is replete' with ^dod Ibgic and sound 
 Christian teaching.' It \s GiidX\.eA Duties of Christian Masters, 
 and is a neat volume of 287 pages, published at Nashville, Ten- 
 nessee, in 1859. Both the boot and its use have now passed 
 away ; but its author is still actively engE^ed with his pen. 
 
 Bishop McTyeire has written a vast deal for the ephemeral 
 press of the day, — quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies, and daiUes, 
 — mainly for the Christian Advocate, of the Methodist Church, 
 South, of which he was at one time editor. 
 
 Our author was bom in Barnwell Distric);, South Carolina, on 
 the 28th of July, 1824; graduated at Randolph, Macon College, 
 in Virginia, 1844; and was elected and consecrated a Bishop in 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in New Orleans, April, 
 1866. He is one of the youngest bishops of that church; and 
 is located at this time at Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
 ELIAS MARKS, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Marks is, I believe, a native of the North. His names 
 indicate an Hebraic origin. He graduated in medidpe, apd 
 commenced the practice of it some forty or, fifty years ago, in 
 the then small town of Colu^nbia. , After a few years of practi^c^e 
 in the Esculapian art, hp betook hinjself to teaching a school of 
 girls, assisted by Mrs.. Madts.^ T^^Y finally estabhshed the. large 
 institution near Columbia, known all oyer the Sputl-j as one of 
 the best schools for young ladies in the South, called Barham- 
 ville, in compliment to Mrs. Marks, nSe Barham; It is two 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE ISOUTH. 369 
 
 nules from the, city, and its situation of perfect healtbfulness has 
 contributed its part toward the eminent success with which the 
 institution has met. Dr. Marks retired, from the controul of the 
 seminary just before the war, and has since, I believe, devoted 
 hiiaself to letters, or to the enjoyment of the otium cum 
 dignitate. 1 
 
 His published works are:- — 
 
 1. A translation, with notes, of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 
 from the Latin of Verhoofd, a neat sedecimo volume, was pub- 
 lished in 1818, by a New- York publishing house. 
 
 2. JEifreide of Guldal, a Scandinavian Legend, and other 
 ' Poems, hy Marks of Barhamville, appeared in- 1850. ■ 
 
 3. A work on an "ethical subject," of which I have not 
 learned the. title, has been made ready for publication during 
 these later years of leisure, and will no doubt be given to the 
 public ere long. ' ' 
 
 MISS NELLY MARSHALL. 
 
 This gifted young writer commenced her literary career, by 
 writing for periodicals, in 1863. • 1 
 
 It was Axks that directed her feet to the temple of Ath^nje. 
 
 The destroying hands of war induced her to take up the pen 
 of authorship. 
 
 In the prefece to her first volume she says : " The war, which 
 brought devastation and desolation to so many homes in Ken- 
 tucky, passed by Beechland [her father'k residence] with no 
 sparing hand ; and its sad imnates wept over the desecration 
 of household gods, and the blasting of bright dreams, whose 
 iris hues had given radiance to the hallowed past." 
 
 This tells the whole story. 
 
 She is just past twenty, and seems full of youthful aspirations,- 
 
37° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 and hopes, and life. She puts her impulses, feelings, and 
 thoughts into literary forms with wonderful facility, sacrificing, 
 of necessity sometimes, strict artistic forms for the freedcMn of an 
 exuberant c^fl^.«J. 
 
 She is a daughter of General Humplwey MardiaJl of Kentucky, 
 whose residence — Beechland — near Louisville, was the home of 
 Miss Marshall, until the fortunes of war changed the peaceful 
 flow of her beautiful life. 
 
 After the war, she continued her pen-labours in the West until 
 the spring of 1868, when she went to reside in New York, 
 where she now is^ Her first volume, however, was pubUshed 
 before her move North. Until 1865, her writings consisted of 
 . tales, sketches, and poems, contributed to periodicals, mostly in 
 the West. Early in 1866, her first volume appeared. Her pub- 
 lications, thus far, are : — < 
 
 1. Gleanings from Fireside Fancies, by Sans Souci. This was 
 published by Baily, of Chicago, in 1866. The writer makes her 
 bow authorial in these graceful and characteristic words : — 
 
 " To the great heart of the world, which ever knows how to 
 love and pity those who suffer, do I come with this little tribute, 
 asking a welcome." 
 
 The volume is a neat duodecimo of about four hundred 
 pages, and consists of a selection from the tales, sketches, and 
 poems, which she had written up to that time. , The style 
 is frequently a little showy and ambitious, but never tame, and 
 sometimes ornate with a tropical tendency towards the florid. 
 
 2. As by Fire — a novel of passion-life, earnest, intense, and 
 full of pathos ! — appeared after the writer's removal to New 
 York, early in 1869. The book was well received by the 
 public, and tlae critical pens had their say about it, some severe, 
 and some temperate. The Round Table complains that it is 
 all "perpetual splendour witliout repose," and considerately 
 adds : " In adopting this mode of writing, Miss Marshall is 
 unjust to herself, for in her special delineations of character $he 
 displays abundant capacity to excel." The story is American 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 371 
 
 in the most of its characters and scenery, although there is a 
 touch of the English in one or two of the leading characters, and 
 the denouement takes place in that country. The tendency to 
 gloom which pervades die author's mind appears all through the 
 book, and gives us too little hope, and too much struggle ; too 
 many thorns, and too few roses and crowns. This temper 
 suggests that of Beulah, Macaria, and those keen and hard 
 books of Mrs. Wilson. There is a redundancy of brilliant 
 adjectives, too, and a certain frequency of reference to recon- 
 dite lore that from time to time suggests Beulah, or rather may- 
 be St. Eimo. But. there is no resemblance whatever in the 
 story to any of these works. The style is Very fairly represented 
 in this one sentence, in which the subject is on the point of 
 abandoning her husbarid, whom she does not love, for a lover, 
 whom she fancies she does : — 
 
 "Now, in the hey-day of life, when she possessed wealth, 
 health, youth, and beauty ; when countless sources of happiness 
 and enjoyment bent rose-crowned from every hour; now, when 
 she could taste, or drink to satiety, the rare amber-hued Faler- 
 nian of love, or the pale aromatic Tokay of passion, she did not . 
 pause to think intoxication was a sure concomitant of either, if 
 too deeply imbibed; but she chose the Tokay, and little 
 dreamed that the wine once spilled might never sparkle in the 
 jewelled cup again." 
 
 This ornamental style pervades the book, and imparts a 
 slightly artificial air to the narrative ; which air comes entirely 
 of youth and inexperience. These splefidida vitia will disappear 
 very soon. In As by Fire, we have a promise of future success, 
 of which our author may be justly proud ; and I risk nothing in 
 predicting that the- South wil} be. She is already engaged upon 
 another work ; and those who know herself expect more in the 
 new volume than even the hope in As by Fire indicates. 
 
 From among the verses in ihe Gleanings, the following poem, 
 called Two Shadows at the Window, is selected as a favourable 
 specimen : — 
 
372 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 ^ Two shadows at the wmdow 
 
 Soft melting into one ; 
 Two hearts that throb together 
 
 In love beneath the sun; 
 Two voices whisper gently. 
 
 And lips of scarlet meet ; 
 And glances fond and tender. 
 
 Four eager eyes do greet. 
 
 "I love thee, Jennje, darling. 
 
 Thou art the ligtt of life ; 
 , I would win thee to my heart 
 
 As a sweet and gentle wife. 
 Wilt thou come into my home. 
 
 And bless it with thy smile. 
 And each gloom-cloud of woe 
 
 To hope and faith beguile ? " 
 
 And the proud head was bent low 
 
 To catch the whispered word, 
 Which Jennie breathed so softly 
 
 That the wind was scarcely stirred. 
 Two shadows at the window 
 
 Soft melting into one; 
 Two hearts that throb together 
 
 In love beneath the sun. 
 
 Two shadows at the window, — 
 
 But thfe moonlight lies between. 
 Like the sea that binds the Past 
 
 To the Future-land, I ween. 
 Yet silent as they fall 
 
 Along the window-sill. 
 Then softly melt together, 
 
 As the Past and Present ■will. 
 
 A. low voice murmurs softly. 
 As dim eyes look far away _ 
 
 To a moss-grown grave that lies 
 In the church-yard still and grey ; 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 373 
 
 "'Twas here, just thirty years past, 
 
 I wooed Jennie for a Wife, 
 And ^1??-^, to-nigkt, I feel, child, 
 
 I'll yield my lease of life. 
 
 "Nay, weep notso, Iny daughter. 
 
 That my star is on the wane; 
 Not for all the wealth of Ind 
 
 Would I be young again ! 
 Jennie was the -frofld to me. 
 
 And these twenty years or more 
 I have been without her smile. 
 
 Or her 'footstep on the floor. 
 
 "And I am very weary 
 
 To mfeet her soon again. 
 In the Lethean land of rest, 
 
 Where there's never any pain. 
 You are a woman now Maud, — 
 
 Be patient, brave, and triie ; 
 God holds hopes for you in life. 
 
 But I've nothing left to do. 
 
 Mine eyes are growing dim. 
 And my" breath it fails me fast — 
 
 Jennie ! is it you, dear ? 
 
 Thant God, 'tis you, at last!" 
 
 Two shadows at the window. 
 
 Soft melfing into one. 
 One life has just waned out. 
 
 The other just begun. 
 And yfet their shadow^ fall 
 
 Together on the sill — 
 Sire and' child, life and death. 
 
 Past and Present still. 
 
 I have quoted the verses entire, asterisks and all, so as. t6 do 
 no detriment to the merits of the piece. 
 32 
 
374 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I venture to add another, of more recent date, which Miss 
 Marshall calls Thanksgiving: — 
 
 Thou hast been spared ! The fell destroyer's gloomy wing but swept 
 
 The pallor of thy God-Uke brow,. 
 As steady, swift, and sure, like a seal of fate, he crept 
 
 To lay thee in thy beauty, low ! 
 
 Thou hast been spared ! and low I bend my humble knee ; 
 
 My soul fills up with grateful tears. 
 My God ! of thy sweet smile bereft, this world had been to me 
 
 A waste through all the coming years ! 
 
 It matters not how many friends had gathered round me then ; 
 
 Their friendship vain — hadst thou been gone ! 
 As stricken fawn would staggering seek the dark and rugged glen, 
 
 I too had fled, and died alone. 
 
 The autumn flowers that light the woods like spirits of the spring, 
 ^ The maple tree's bright belts of flame. 
 
 The golden mosses by the rimning stream, the woodland swing. 
 No charms had had, though still the same. 
 
 The mellow-throated birds, whose warbling notes now fill the hours 
 
 With rapturous song from bush and tree. 
 No more my heai;t entranced had held by wondrous vocal powers — 
 
 No songs again had sung for me ! 
 
 The brown butterflies, with sunshine's gold-dust on their wings; 
 
 The grasshoppers 'mid the clover j 
 The chirping cricket, and noisy cicada that suigs 
 
 The same song over and over. 
 
 The luscious fruits of autumn, and waving fields of grain. 
 
 And meadow-grasses brown and sere. 
 Might never beauties hold for my lonesome eyes again. 
 
 If thou hadst died, beloved and dear 1 
 
 TJiou hast been spared.! Oh, joyful thought, beyond all joy to me 1 
 
 Again my eager voice I raise, — 
 My Alderlievest! My very own ! And, kneeling near t/iee. 
 
 Henceforth I hymn my Maker's praise I 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 375 
 
 MRS. MARGARET MAXWELL MARTIN. 
 
 Mrs. Martin has been "widely and favourably known all over 
 the South for a great many years, as a writer of verse and 
 prose almost exclusively religious; Her writiiigs enjoy a large 
 degree of favour among the religious and church people, far 
 larger than among those who look primarily to the literary 
 character of literature. She is the wife of the Rev. William 
 Martin, a Methodist minister of the most earnest and life-per- 
 vading, but at the same time simple and unostentatious piety, — 
 a man, than whom none can stand higher for those vital, unsel- 
 fish, and Christian virtues which mark the true minister of that 
 hortiely and Christ-like denomination. ' 
 
 Mrs. Martin, nie Maxwell, is a worthy Wife of such a 
 gospel labourer. 
 
 She has written the following works : — 
 
 1. Day-Spring ; Or Light to them that sigh in Darkness. 
 1854. ' - 
 
 2. Sabbath-School Offering. A collection of Tales and Poems. 
 1854. 
 
 3. Methodism; or Christianity in Earnest. 1855. 
 
 4. Religious Poems. 1858. . 
 
 5. Flowers and Fruits ; or Poems for young People. 
 
 Of Religious Poems, at the time of its pubUcation, the Rev. 
 Dr. Thornwell, then conducting the Southern Quarterly Review, 
 speaks as follows :-:- '^ . , 
 
 " The book consists of a longer didatic poem, entitled Chris- 
 tianity, divided into two parts. The first celebrating the pro- 
 gress, the second illustrating the pOwer of the Gospel, and of 
 various collections of minor pieces grouped under the heads, — 
 Poems by Lamp-light, or Paraphrases of Scripture ; Foreign 
 Missions; Domestic. Missions ^ land Miscellaneous. They are 
 all possessed of merit, and, we are happy to say, of a merit 
 which is very rare among modem aspiraftts t6 the honours of the 
 
376 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SQUTH. 
 
 Muse, — the merit of good sense intelligibly expressed. Mrs. 
 Martin's inspiration is not from the clouds; or the fog, or the 
 mist. She is not an owl that croaks in darkness, nor a bat that 
 flies by twilight. She is a daughter of Jight, and all thajjiis 
 necessary to understand her verses is a human heart, touched 
 and refined by Divine grace. Some of the shorter pieces are 
 marked by a high degree of lyric excellence ; but we confess 
 that the sweetest attraction of the whole book to us is the odour 
 of Christian piety whjch is diffused from every page." 
 
 She commenced to write, verses at thirteen, and is now past 
 threescore. 
 
 She was bom ia Dumfries, Scotland, on Sunday, the 12 th of 
 July, 1807; came to America jn 1815 ; was educated mainly in 
 Columbia, South Carolina ; and was married to Mr. Martin on 
 the 6th of July, 1836. 
 
 She is to-day writing little articles for the Mission Christian 
 Advocate, for which she is paid fifty dollars -e^ch, to purchase 
 corn for the suffering and starving in the South. 
 
 The following tribute to the memory of Burns is a favourable 
 specimen of Mrs. Martin's verse, — more a,rtistic, too, than most 
 of her church verses : — 
 
 Come, strike the lyre unto the day 
 When crown of laurel and of bay 
 Was fashiQued for a wean that lay 
 
 In peasant's cot. 
 Strike, for a, heaven-descended ray 
 lUumined those poor walls of clay. 
 And genius paused on her bright way 
 
 To mark the spot. - ■ 
 
 Ay, more, to mark the day, the year. 
 When Bums, the bard of Scotia dear. 
 The poet of the smile and tear. 
 
 Her joy and Jiride, 
 First saw the light ; blest epoch, ne'er 
 Unto the world of mind appear 
 But lilce a light, life's barque to cheer. 
 Upon time's tide. 
 
LfyjNG WJiir^^S OF TtfE. SQUTff. 3.77 
 
 And, though a century has gone, 
 And tims'and tide hai?^ 'hurried op," 
 And meMdrie^'fled, and fancies flowii. 
 
 The poet lives; 
 Lives where he Owns a rival none ;' ' 
 Lives where no sun has his outshone ; 
 Lives whefe he reigns supreme, alone,' 
 
 And gladness gives. 
 
 Lives in his countiy's noble heart ; 
 Lives wherjb his genius throws athwart 
 A genial ray, — a vital part 
 
 Of hini so' true. 
 Lives where is felt his magic art. 
 That with electric power doth dait 
 Its energizing force, to start 
 
 To life anew. 
 
 For,, fresh as ^ririg-time'5 verdant hope. 
 
 Are the sweet fancies /WeUiag up 
 
 From the cl^r stream (hat may not stop 
 
 Its sparldimgiflow ; ■ 
 Till no clear, cool, refreshing drop 
 Shall man ird^uire from nature's cup, ' 
 Till mental thirst refuse to sup, 
 
 'IwiU ev^ go. 
 
 And while the stream is fresh and clears 
 E'en now, as in its hundreth year. 
 Bard of all time, thy name be dear 
 
 Unto the heart ; 
 Unto thy memory a tear, 
 A smile, to greet a century here. 
 Since thou didst on the earth appear 
 To play thy part. 
 
 Thy part upon the heart to play 
 Sweet music, vrith thy tuneful lay 
 To sweeten toil the live-long day 
 
 Wi' moriy a sang ; 
 32* 
 
378 LIVtN-G WRITERS OF THE SOVTH. 
 
 To cheer the labourer on his way. 
 To send the peasant's hut a ray. 
 On all to sunshine glint sac gay. 
 Thou wast na wrang. 
 
 For, oh ! "the hill" to maists, sae steep. 
 
 That aft we turn aside to weep, 
 
 When we wa'd rin, that we maun creep, 
 
 Sae feeble, slaw ; 
 We neeii a stirring lilt to sweep 
 Across our hearts, Ve need toTceep 
 Bums by, to gar us wake from sleep. 
 
 And mak us braw. 
 
 As a specimen of her devotional verses, I insert a paraphrase 
 of 2 Timothy, iii. i6, which the author entitles Scriptures Para- 
 phrased : — 
 
 Unto the "fountam" of "Thy blood," 
 
 A creature soiled with sin 
 Weot, proved the purifying flood : 
 
 He washed, and he was clean. 
 
 To "Qilead's" ever-healing "balm" 
 
 A sick and wounded soul 
 Applied, and soon exclaimed, "I am 
 
 E'en every whit made whole." 
 
 Unto the " well-spring" of Thy grace 
 
 A thirsty soul drew nigjh : 
 He drank; and to Thy name be praise. 
 
 He never more was dry. 
 
 A weary traveller, sore distressed. 
 
 Had' wandered many a day : 
 He found the "path of peace," 'twas rest," 
 
 And Thee, " the Truth, the Way." 
 
 A soul, in da^k temptation's hour. 
 
 Did powers of (Jarkness brave 
 To gain thy " cross "; it had the power 
 
 To succour and to save. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 379 
 
 A SQul, of every hope bereft. 
 At Thy dear feet did fall, ■ 
 And foimd, when he had nothing left. 
 That " Christ " was "all in all.'' 
 
 Beside the works mentioned above, Mrs Martin has ready for 
 the press two more books: Scenes and Scenery of South Caro- 
 lina; and Temperanch Tales, Poems, and Sketches. 
 
 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY, LL.D. 
 
 Commodore Maury is a Virginian by birth, a Tennessean by 
 adoption, and a Washingtonian by residence ; since the war of 
 Secession he has become a citizen of the Empire of Mexico. 
 
 He was bom in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, on the 14th 
 of January, 1806. His parents moved to Tennessee in 1810. 
 In his nineteenth year he received a midshipman's commission. 
 From that date he lived "a life on tlie' ocean wave," making 
 cruises, voyages, and sailings numerous ; and once circumnavi- 
 gated the globe. 
 
 His scientific education has been gathered in the midst of 
 active operations, and by dint -of industry, energy, and special 
 directions of study. 
 
 In his thirty-fourth year an accident in a stage-coach, when 
 travelling through Ohio, so injured one leg that he has been 
 forced since then to abandon, in a great measure, active Operations 
 afloat. He was not suffered long to remain idle; but was put 
 in charge of such bdoks, charts, and insfriiments as the United 
 States had at that time collected at the seat of government. 
 This depot was expanded into what was styled the Hydrogra- 
 phical Office. This was united with the national Observatory, 
 at a later date called the Naval- Observatory, and Commodore 
 — then Lieutenant — Maury was placed At tlie head of the 
 combined institution. i 
 
38o LIVING WRITERS OF TffE SOUTH. 
 
 In 1842 he matured and proposed his scHeme for a system of 
 uniform observations of wiiids, currents aiid other meteorological 
 phenomena at sea. This is the great work, of his life. Model 
 log-books were distnbutfed to commanders of vessels in the naval 
 and merchant rnsjines, and system enforced in all entries of 
 observations, and, abstract returns forwarded to ^the department. 
 Nine years resulted in a coUection making two. htiixired huge 
 manuscript volumes. 
 
 These observations, _exten4^d>-though their sphere was, were 
 too limited for the purposes of thorough science ; and Commo- 
 dore Maury, with ^ characteristic energy ajid wiD, set'iabout ex- 
 tending the sphere. He succeeded, as such spirit and enthusi- 
 asm always do, and the general Maritime Conference held in 
 Brussels in 1853, was tbcfresplit This Conference adopted the 
 scheme, and , thus extended it§ operations throughout the mari- 
 time world. , ' ^ 
 
 In 1855 Commodore Ma«ry received his present rank from 
 the United States. 
 
 Upon the secession of Virginia, he gave up his position as 
 Chief of tl\e. Naval, OJ)servatory at Washington, and came SoiUh. 
 He threw his whole soul, with its working energy, heartily into 
 the cause of the South. The Conf(tderate government gave him 
 the of35ce of Commander in its navy; and sent him abroad under 
 orders involving important interests in the Confederate Navy. 
 He returned to the Squtji before the conclusion of the war. At 
 its close — on the 1 9tlf of September, 1865, that is to say — he was 
 appointed by MaximiUan I. Emperor of Mexico his Honoiirary 
 Councillor of the Mexican Empire. - Shortly after the failure of 
 the Mexipan Empire he returned to. the United States, and in 
 1868 became Professor in the Virginia Military Institute, at 
 Lexingtop, in that state, 1 ' ■ 
 
 Commodore Maury has published the following: — 
 
 1- A Treatise on Navigation,. A handbook for the student of 
 natural science J published, about 1835. 
 
 2. Scraps from the Lttcky Bag, by Harry Bluff. A series of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOOTIt. j8r 
 
 articles pertaining to the Navy, in the Southern Literary Mes- 
 senger, about 1840. 
 
 3. H^nd and Current Charts. Results of Various observations 
 collected through his agency.' 
 
 4. Sailing Directions. A twin work with the Charts. 
 
 5. The Physical Geography of the Sea. 1855. 
 
 6. Papers contributed to various periodicals, among which 
 are Letters on the American and the Atlantic Slopes of South 
 America; Relation between Magrietism and the Atmosphere ; 
 Astronomical Observations ; Letters concerning Lines for the 
 Steamers crossing the Atlantic. 
 
 7. Addresses on various occasions, among Vhich are, that 
 before the Geological and Mineraldgical Society of Fredericks- 
 burg, in 1836; that before the Southern Scientific Convention 
 at Memphis in 1849, on the Pacific Railway; and that before the 
 American Geographical and Statistical Society in New York in 
 1854. : . 
 
 8. In 1867 a series of ' School Geographies appeared, consist- 
 ing oi First Lessons in Geography: The World we Live in, 
 for younger pupils ; Manual of Geography, a complete treatise 
 on mathematical, civil and physical geography, forming part third 
 of the series ; and, lastly, Physical Geography, in which the natu- 
 ral features of the earth, atmospherical phenomena, and animal 
 and vegetable life will be fully treated. This series is designed 
 for Southern use, and is prepared with reference to such Use, we 
 understand. 
 
 The Charts and the Sailing Directions, are the pillars of 
 Commodore Maury's reputation as a useful man; In this regard 
 he has surpassed others ; and in this his usefulness and reputation 
 will be pennanent. Here he stands pre-eminent, without a peer 
 in America and little chance of rivalry abroad. 
 
 Commodore Maury appears to consider \h& Physical Geogra- 
 phy of the Sea as his magnum opus — as, in sottie 'soft, the cream 
 of all his researches and other labours. , 
 
 Upon this point scientific men take issue with him. The 
 
38a LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 bopk is wiitten in a pleasing and popular style; and, to those 
 whose education in exact science is limited, it is a fascinating and 
 conclusive work. Hence its immense popularity. The many 
 are instructed and charmed. But the scientific critic will insist 
 upon applying the established principles of science to the sweep- 
 ing theories presented in the Physical Geography, in a way 
 decidedly embarrassing to these theories. His theory of the 
 winds, for example, — that the separate currents, rising at tlie 
 Equator, cross through each other; again, descending, cross 
 returning currents at the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn ; pass 
 on the surface of the earth to the poles ; twirl up spirally around 
 the poles ; and return as upper currents to the tropics, where 
 they descend, crossing the meeting currents, and return to the 
 Equator as surface currents, there to be lighted by the heat again 
 (and so on continuously round and round), deflected from right 
 lines, of course, by the rotary motion of the earth. This theory, 
 we say, the critics insist, is not satisfactorily sustained by the 
 facts brought forward in its behalf by the author. They insist, 
 further, that some of the facts adduced themselves want substan- 
 tiation. 
 
 Again, these same exacting critics maintain that in Commo- 
 dore Maury's discussion of the causes of oceanic currents — the 
 Gulf Stream, for example — he "has not made the slightest 
 addition to our knowledge, or advanced a single step towards 
 a more satisfactory explanation of the phenomena ;" that is to 
 say, what is new in his discussion is not true, and what is true is 
 not new. • 
 
 The point at which I am arriving is this : that speculative phi-' 
 losophy is not Commodore Maury's forte — is not his projier 
 sphere of usefulness, labour and honour; that he stands ■ sec&nd' 
 to no man, of those " who go down to the sea in ships, " as an 
 observer, collator, and systematizer of facts ; that in this sphere, 
 full in itself of dignity and honour, he has achieved a position 
 of lasting honour ; and, in fine, that he will lose by departing 
 from it. 
 
LIVING WRITES OF THM SaUTH., 383 
 
 Commodpre Maury is in his sixty-third year, fjj.person he is' 
 a small, thick setj jovial man, lanje of one leg,- partially bald, 
 having light eyes and fair complexion. He generally wears no 
 beard. Talks genially and .well.. Has. a family. 
 
 His chirograph indicates more directness and force of charac- 
 ter than elegailce— more energy than .polish. 
 
 BRANTZ MAYER. 
 
 The family of this author is German, his father — Christian. 
 Mayer — being a native of Ulm, Wurtemburg. His mother was . 
 a lady of Pennsylvania. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, 
 on the 27th of September, 1809; was educated, at St. Mary's 
 College ; travelled in India, Sumatra, China, and Java ; returned 
 to America in 1828 ; read law and entered upon that profession ; . 
 made the tour of Europe ; returned home, to continue his law 
 practice, and to take active part in politics; received the ap- 
 pointment of Secretary of Legation at Mexico, in 1841, and 
 lived there two years ; continued his profession until 1863, when 
 he entered the United States Army, in which he now is. At one 
 time — since his return from Mexico — he had editorial charge 
 of the Baltimore American newspaper. He is the inaugurator 
 of the movement that resulted in the establishment of the Mary- 
 land Historical Society, founded in 1844, in which he has laboured 
 with much success, and of which he was for many years an active 
 superintendent and at all times a liberal benefactor. 
 
 Mr. Mayer is resident in the city of Baltimore, and continues 
 to take active and productive interest in literary, historical, and 
 aestlietic matters. 
 
 His published works are : — 
 
 I. Mexico, as Jt Was and as It Is, was published in 1S44, 
 shortly after his return from that country, He after^srards i — 
 1851 — published another work upon the same country ;. and 
 
384 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 both these works abound in curious, rare, and valuable infor- 
 mation — books, indeed, that are' the authorities upon Mexico 
 and her complex civilization. 
 
 2. A Memoir, and the Journal of Charles Carroll of Carrollton 
 during his Mission to Canada with Chase and Franklin in 1776/ 
 an octavo, published in 1844. 
 
 3. Mexico — Aztec, Spanish, and Republican ; two volumes, 
 published in i8si. 
 
 4. Ta-gah-jute ; or Logan -the Indian and Captain Michael 
 Cresap. This was originally an Anniversary Discourse before 
 the Maryland Historical Society, delivered in 185 1 ; and pub- 
 lished, soon after, en brochure. Subsequently — in 1867— 7it 
 was issued in superb style and small edition by a New Ycsrk 
 pubUshing house. Of the original publication, Duyck,inck says : 
 " It is a vindication of a worthy backwoodsman and captain of 
 the Revolution from the imputation of cruelty in the alleged 
 ' speech' of Logan, handed down by Jefferson. Logan is made 
 out a passionate, drunken savage, passing through various scenes 
 of personal revenge, and ending his career in a mel&e induced by 
 himself,- under the idea that in a fit of intoxication he had- mur- 
 dered his wife. Colonel Cresap, on the other hand, appears not 
 only entirely disconnected witli the attack on Logan's family, 
 but becomes of inteirest as a well-tried courageous pioneer of 
 the western civilization — a tj^e of his class, and well worthy a 
 chapter in the historical nari;atiye of America. The histpry of 
 the speech is somewhat a curiosity. It was not spoken at al^ 
 but. was a simple message, communicated in an intervievy with 
 a single person, an emissEiry from the, British camp, by whom it 
 was reported on his return." [Cyclopmdta. of Americati Litera- 
 ture, volume 2, page 517.] 
 
 5. Captain Canot, or Twenty Years of the Life of an African 
 Slaver; published in 1854. This is a book of vivid life and active 
 adventure. Of this 'book, the author just quoted says : "<^fp.- 
 tain Canot, whose nanie is slightly altered, is an actual personage, 
 who supplied the author with the facts which he has woven into 
 
LIVING WRITERS^ OF THE SOUTH. 1?>S 
 
 his exciting narrative. The force of the book consists in its 
 cool, matter-of-fact account of tlie wild life of the Slave Trader 
 on the western coast of Africa ; the rationale of whose iniquitous 
 proceedings is unblushingly avowed, and given with a fond' and 
 picturesque detail usually reserved for topics for which the civi- 
 lized world has greater reject and -sympathy. As a picture of 
 a peculiar state of life it has a verisimilitude, united with a roman- 
 tic interest worthy" the pages of De Foe." "" '^^ 
 
 6. Memoir of Jared Sparks, LL.D. This brief memoir was 
 printed in 1867. ■ ' ' ' ' • 
 
 Mr. Mayer's chirograph is strong and direct ;' intensely eiecu- 
 tive; wanting in delicacy, and full' of daring; wanting in stHct 
 system, and indicating a mind decided tb do Its mission ruai 
 coelum: • There is great reserve in it, but little s'ecretiveness and 
 still less caution. 
 
 EDWARD C. MEAD. . 
 
 Mr. Mead appears as the author of'iii elegantly gotten up 
 A^olume entitled, Getiealogical \Sistory of the Lee Family, of 
 Ptrgikia and Maryland, from A.D. 1260^ fo 1866. In addition 
 to the family matters presented, the volume "gives hiany liiteresting 
 facts touching the Revolutionary War. Half a dozen steel por- 
 traits and some otiier pictures illustrate the work. In explana- 
 tion of the reasons that induced him to make the Lee family the 
 subject of a book, the a,uthQr says in his Preface : — 
 
 "Although the cause of which he wasi the i^ilitary leader was a 
 failure, the name of General Robert E.,Lee, is universally res- 
 pected at the North and in Europe^, while. at the South it is 
 almost reverenced, especially by tlje ppiyiers he jBommanded, and 
 the officers who .served un^er Ijiiqi^ . That he has proved himself 
 a soldier, without fear and without, rej)roach, is universally 
 conceded; that he is a Christian geri.tl^mananj| patriot, all who 
 know him wiii bearjw^lling testimony. "To ,fuch a man the 
 33 
 
386 LIVING WRITERS. OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 'pomp of heraldry' has but few attractions; but his name, 
 whether linked with success or misfortune, is an unblemished one, 
 and already belongs to history." 
 
 Mr. Mead, I am informed, is a Virginian. 
 
 GEORGE HENRY MEEK. 
 
 This promising young poet of the Crescent City is in no way, 
 I am informed, related to Judge Meek of Alabama who died a 
 few years ago. Mr. Meek was born of English parents in the 
 city of New York on the 2Sth of November, 1837. The family 
 removed to New Orleans while the son was yet an infant. He 
 has been an assiduous student, devoted to reading and literary 
 work in general, and has written a great many essays and poems. 
 Immediately after the war he became connected with the edito- 
 rial corps of the New Orleans Times, which connection he still 
 holds. He married a lady of Jackson, Mississippi, in 1866. In 
 person he is of medium height; has dark eyes and light hair; 
 and in manner is eminently easy, cordial, and agreeable. 
 
 I offer A Vision as a lyric that pretty fairly indicates Mr. 
 Meek's verse-style : — 
 
 Day's fevered pulse now beats serene. 
 And o'er the landscape's lovely scene 
 Night trails her robes of starry sheen. 
 
 Delicious odours balm the air. 
 
 And charm the senses everywhere. 
 
 Like a mother's kiss, or a mother's prayer. 
 
 A rippling stream is munnurmf j near ; 
 Sure whispering angels vpander here. 
 Strains chanting from some heavenly sphere;. 
 
 Supernal splendour beams above. 
 
 While all around, through dell and grove. 
 
 The ^hing zephyrs breathe of love. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 387' 
 
 And as I gaze witli dreamful eyes, 
 A vision bright before me flies. 
 As one escaped from Paradise; 
 
 A being free from eartlily guile. 
 Pure as the stars that beamed awhil6. 
 Till brighter beamed her dimpled smile. 
 
 With mirthful eye and modest mien. 
 The earth and sky she floats between. 
 Of light and love the living Queen. 
 
 Her swelling bosoms' wopdrous wMte^ 
 And tapering zone, so fraU, so light. 
 Seem framed to tempt an anchorite. 
 
 Her's is the lily's bending grace, 
 And her's that sweet Madonna face 
 A loving seraph might embrace. 
 
 The perfumed air still sweeter blows, 
 Still lovelier now my vision grows. 
 And steeps my soul in soft repose : 
 
 For never di-eamed I here below. 
 While in this weary world of woe, 
 A maiden's eyes, in friendly glow. 
 
 Would light my soul in love's behest. 
 And wake within my inmost breast. 
 Melodious strains supremely blest. 
 
 P. H. MELL, D.D. 
 
 The Viee-ChanceUor of the Jjlniveisity of Geojgia is a native 
 of the town of Waithoumlle in liiat state.; He was bom on the 
 19th of July, 1814; went through the Freshman and Sophomore 
 classes in Amhurst College, Massachusetts; was Professor of 
 Ancient Languages in Mercer University, -Georgia; and ihas 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH 
 
 been for eleven years in the University of Georgia, at Athens, 
 where he is Professor of Ethics and Metaphysics. 
 
 His published works are mostly polemic, as will appear in the 
 list: — 
 
 1. Baptism inifs Mo^e and Subjects — a i.6mo. of 304 pages — 
 was published. by the Southern Baptist Publiciation Society, in 
 1854; and ran through four editions, when, the society was 
 broken up by the war. 
 
 2. Predestination and the Saints, . Perseverance Stated and 
 Defended from the Objections of Armenians — a i6mo. of 89 
 pages — appeared under the same auspices in 1858, and ran 
 through three editions. 
 
 3. Corrective Church Discipline: with a Development of the 
 Scriptural Principles upon which it ig based -p- a i6mo. of 126 
 pages — appeared in i860. 
 
 4. A Manual of Parliamentary Practice — Rliles for Conduct- 
 ing Business in DeUberative Assemblies. This was published in 
 Atlanta, Georgia!, in 1868. It is a i6mo. of 91 pages. 
 
 5. Several Pamjihlets, upon various subjects, mostly religious 
 or controversial, and literary. 
 
 HENRY MIDDLETON. 
 
 Among the ancient and honoured names of South Carolina, 
 there is none more ancient and honoured than that of Middle- 
 ton. Indsed, it brought a. prestige, tim&^ionoured and English, 
 to its first connection with the colonial times of Old Carolina. 
 
 Hie subject of the present paper was, bom near the begiiiifiing 
 of liie present century, at the family mansion — I am left to in- 
 ference forithis fact — upon the banks of the Ashley River, in 
 the, Palmetto State. 
 
 His father — the late Hon. Henry MiddJeto%. mentioned in 
 
ZTVIJKG WRITERS OF THE ^OUl^H. 389 
 
 Griswold's Memoir of Edgar Foe:, as the American: Miiiister- in 
 St. Petersburg,, who befriended Poe in his destiteition there — was 
 Governor of South Carolina in i8n j member of Congress in 
 1816, and until 1820, when he was appointed to represent our 
 government at the court of St! Petersburg,' where he resided ten 
 years. ' ' ■ .! ■,:■,■.■ 
 
 His grandfather — Arthur Middleton, one of tiie signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence-^ was born in 1743 on the banks 
 of the Ashley River, in Carolina j ■ and was educated at West- 
 minister' School andCambridge Universityj England. 
 
 His great-grandfather — ^ Henry Middleton — was one of flie 
 Presidents of the First Congress of 1774. 
 
 His great-great-grandfather-— Arthur Middleton — who was 
 bom in 1681 andidied in 1737, was deputed by the Assembly of 
 the Colony of South Carolina, while acting as Speaker of that 
 body in 1719,' to infomi the Governor of South Carolina under 
 the Propjietary; Government, that, by their unanimous decision, 
 he was no longer Governor of the Colony. He became one of 
 the first Royal Governors of that province. After the Proprietary 
 Government, which had derived its charter from the crown, was 
 swept away, in ,1719, the Royal Government succeeded; the 
 Governors receiving their authority directly from the crown, in- 
 stead of as formerly from the hands of the proprietors under the 
 charter. One of the most prominent of these proprietors was 
 the famous and fickle Lord-Chancellor Shaftesbury, the friend 
 and patron of Locke and the Achitopihel 6f Drydeh's satire. 
 
 Our author cc/mpleted his academic stiidies in Edinburgh, in 
 1822, and was admitted to the bar of Charleston, in his native 
 state, in that year or the one following. He has lived much in 
 England and Ftance, where he has had opportunities of forming 
 and maturing opinions on foreign politics, and hks enjoyed the 
 friendship and society of distinguished men from various parts of 
 the worli On the eve of the war of secession, after an absence 
 of nine years in Europe, he returnfed to Carolina, where he re- 
 mained until its close. ' ' 
 33* 
 
39P IRVING WRITERS OF THS SOUTH. 
 
 Mr. Middleton is the autlior of three books, one publidied in 
 New York and two in London, besides a great many occasiond 
 papers. His works are : — i ),.,! 
 
 I. The Government and the Currency, was published^ by 
 Charles B. Norton in 1850. This issue was a republication of 
 the work, it having been previously published in separate parts. 
 The first Pait appeared in pamphlet form in Philadelphia as 
 early as 1844 ; and was very favourably noticed, particularly by 
 the North American Review. The second part was published 
 the following year in Hunts Merchants Magazine. The first 
 Part is far more eleoientary than the second, discussing such 
 matters as constitutionaUty, relations to foreign governments, 
 influence of manufactures, coinage, Wages, exchange, pa^er 
 issues, and bullion, with many others. The second Part 
 throws more light than the first upon the important subject of 
 the circulating medium of a country in its most extended sense, 
 and including not only the currency proper, but notes and paper 
 of all descriptions,' used in affecting the transfer of property from 
 hand to hand, and in the settlement of accounts and ^the pay- 
 ment of dues. It also dwells more at large on the remedies for 
 the evil of over-issues of bank-notes ; on the expense and advan- 
 tages of raising the minimum denomination of bank-issues ; the 
 best manner of effecting the substitution of coin ; bank credits ; 
 the question of how far legislative restraints and regulationsmay 
 properly be carried ; limited and unlimited liability, and thai safest 
 banks ; and quite a variety of other important questions con- 
 nected with the subject of banking and bank regulations which 
 were but slightly, if at all, touched upon in the former Part. 
 While the second Part was originally appearing serially in Hunts 
 Merchants Magazine, Edgar Poe — then editor of The Broadway 
 Journal — said of the November number (1845) of ^^ Maga- 
 zine : — " Its second article is from the pen of H. Middleton, Jr., 
 of South Carolina, and is Chapter 4 of the thoughtful serifi? 
 of Essays on the Government and the Currency which have done 
 so much for the chai-acter of the Magazine. Nothing so good 
 on the same subjects has as yet appeared in America." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 391 
 
 2. Economical Causes of Slavery in. the 'United States, and 
 Obstacles to Abolition. This work was published by Robert 
 Hardwicke of London in 1857. The author styles it an essay, 
 and .informs us that it- is " only a part of a more extensive work 
 upon the question of Slavery, which the author had planned," 
 but which, for various reasons, he did not complete. He states 
 that in it he " has endeavoured to make the question of Slavery 
 in the United States the subject of a purely philosophical inves- 
 tigation ; so far, at least, as it is possible to apply such a mode of 
 investigation to questions of a nature calculated so strongly to 
 enlist, on the one side or the other, the passions and prejudices 
 of all who undertake their discussion." In pursuance of this idea 
 he has given us one of the purest arguments that our literature 
 has upon that peculiarly difficult subject. 
 
 3. The Government of India, as it Has Been, as It Is, and as 
 it Ought To Be. This appeared from the same press — Robert 
 Hardwicke, 192 Piccadilly, London, — in 1858. 
 
 4. Universal Suffrage, in the Various Conditions and Progress 
 of Society ; in Reference Chi^y to its Effects in the United 
 States, Past, Present, and To Come. This work was mainly 
 written during the author's residence abroad, the finishing touches 
 having been added since the, war. The concI,usions are under- 
 stood to be adverse to this pet doctrine of the most progressive 
 school of politicians of the present day. The work — a rather 
 small volume, as to size — has not yet been published, but will 
 probably appear soon. 
 
 GEORGE H. MILES. 
 
 Professor Miles of Emmettsburgh, Maryland, has written some 
 spirited war songs. Of these, one — Coming at Last — is repro- 
 duced in an English volume entitled Black and W/tite. 
 
 The separate publications of this author are : — 
 
 I. Mahomet. A drama. 
 
392 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 2. De Soto. A drama. 
 
 3. Christine. A Troubadour story in verse. 
 
 Of the poems found in the collections of war poetry God Save 
 the South — a hyrnn — is the most- popular. I give it entire : 
 
 God save the South ! 
 God save the South ! 
 Her altars and firesides — 
 
 God save the South ! 
 Now that the war is nigh — 
 Now that we arm to die — 
 Chanting our battle-cry, 
 
 "Freedom or Death 1" 
 
 God save our shield. 
 At home or a-field, 
 Stretch thine arm over us, 
 
 Strengthen and save ! 
 What though they're three to one. 
 Forward, each sire and son ! 
 Strike till the war is won ! 
 
 Strike to the grave 1 
 
 God make the right 
 Stronger than might ! 
 Millions will trample us 
 
 Down in their pride. 
 Lay Thou their legions low,: 
 Roll back the ruthless foe. 
 Let the proud spoiler know 
 
 God's .on our side. 
 
 Hark ! Honour's call, 
 Summoning all — 
 Siunmoning all of us 
 
 Unto the strife. 
 Sons of the South, awake ! 
 Strike till the brand shall break I 
 Strike for dear Honour's sake ! 
 
 Freedom and life ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 393 
 
 Rebels before, 
 Our fathers of yore ; 
 Rebel ! the rightous name 
 
 Washington bore. 
 Why, then, be ours the same — 
 Title he snatched from shame, 
 Making it fast in fame, 
 
 0(Mous no mOre. 
 
 War to the hUt ! 
 Theirs be the guilt 
 Who fetter the freeman 
 
 To ransom the slave.: 
 Up, then, and undismayed 
 Sheathe not the battle-blade 
 Till the last foe is laid 
 
 Low in the grave. 
 
 God save the South ! 
 God save the South ! 
 Dry the dim eyes that now 
 
 Follow our path. 
 Still let the light feet rove 
 Safe through the orange grove J 
 Still keep the land we love 
 
 Safe from all wrath. 
 
 God save the South ! 
 God save the South 1 
 Her altars and firesides — 
 
 God save the South ! 
 For the rude war is nigh. 
 And we must win or die. 
 Chanting our battle-bry, 
 
 "Freedom or Death 1* 
 
394 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 STEPHEN H. MILLER. 
 
 One of the most interesting collections of personal sketches in 
 its department is Major Miller's Bench and Bar of Georgia. It 
 consists of two good-sized volumes ; and occupies to the bar of 
 that state the place that Judge O'Neall's Bench and Bar of 
 South Carolina does to that of the Palmetto State. 
 
 JOHN W. MONTCLAIR. 
 
 The author of Real and Ideal has,' so far as I am advised, 
 published no other book. This is a handsome small volume of 
 verses that appeared in 1865. It is mostly original; but there 
 are besides translations frorn Chamisso, Griin, Heine, Schwab, 
 Vogl, Riickert, and Storm. 
 
 A Night Vision appears to be a favourable specimen of the 
 original poems : — 
 
 I know not how it happened that 
 
 One evening, lone and lat^ 
 I rested from a weary walk 
 
 Beside a church-yard gat& 
 The street was hushed, the star^ shone out. 
 
 The city's lights grew pale ; 
 I heard nought but the watchman's tap 
 
 And night-bird's lonely waih 
 
 I thought of life, its hope and strife. 
 
 Of idols 'neath the dust; 
 And many a deep-set Hnge was moved 
 
 That long had gone to rust. 
 Relentless doom, that youth and strength 
 
 Should waste away and fall ; 
 Ah ! why is nature's life-crop sown 
 
 That death may harvest all? 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 395 
 
 Thus as I mused a vision crept 
 
 From bush and mossy stone ; 
 Methought a muffled form.approached. 
 
 Like one whom I had known ; 
 The image lived, the image spoke 
 
 In accents soft and slow : 
 " I bring thee echoes of the grave, 
 
 From wanderings below: 
 
 fa 
 "Too early severed were the ties 
 
 That clustered 'round my birth ; 
 Friendless and childless have I lived, 
 
 Nor e'er knevi' woman's worth. 
 The demon of gain soon conquered me. 
 
 And I became his slave ; 
 My purse was haunted with tear and curse. 
 
 For I took, but never gave. 
 
 "Beneath the sod I sought repose ; 
 
 But at the door of des^th 
 No welcome came : this worn-out trunk. 
 
 Refilled with living breath. 
 And veiled in gloom, a seraph spoke 
 
 In tones of wondrous sound : 
 ' Return to life ; within this tomb 
 
 No refuge can be found. 
 
 " ' The vridow and the orphan seek; 
 
 Go, heal their suffering deep. 
 And o'er life's path sow fertile seed. 
 
 That blessing^ thou may'st reap. 
 Through manhood back to infancy 
 
 Thy life once more retrace. 
 Till thou at last, a sinless babe; 
 
 Canst meet thy Maker's face.' 
 
 " Electric flashes then illumed 
 
 These eyes so heaven-blind ; 
 These icy limbs were thawed to lifi% 
 
 Aroused this feeble mind. 
 
396 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTS. 
 
 Oh, wearied sense, blunted desirej 
 
 That I from rest am driven. 
 To spin once more the thread of life 
 
 And wend my way from heaven ! " 
 
 The cricket chirped — the vision fled X 
 
 'Twas'dewy morning hour ; 
 I felt alike som6 hapless wretch 
 
 Released from demon-power. 
 Why did this coward flesh with fear 
 
 Wax ipotionless and cold? 
 For in .a dreaming was to me 
 
 This spectral legend told. 
 
 MISS MOLLIE E. MOORE. 
 
 With a genius vigorous and free, stimulated into activity by 
 the stem life of yrai. Miss Moore is just taking her position 
 among Southern' authors. She is essentially Sputhern and in a 
 high degree Westerii jri her style of tliought. She has none of 
 •' that fade sentimentality :that too often marks the verses of young 
 ladies. A something of earnestness and directness of utterance 
 in her best poems reminds us of these characteristic qualities in 
 Miss Mulock's poems. Miss Mioore, at her present age, of 
 course lacks that degree of life-learning which we find in the 
 other; but their tendencies are similar, and Miss Moore is in 
 her legitimate sphere, when she is working in that direction. 
 ^oing Out and Coming In: is one of her begt poems, and is best 
 in these qualities. 
 
 Miss Moore is a nati\re of Alabama ; but in infancy passed 
 westward to San Marcos in Texas; some years later to Smith 
 County, where she lived, the greater part of her girlhood, and 
 pubhshed her first verses; and finally to Galveston, where she 
 now resides, though her home iq in Smith .Cqiinty. Her life has 
 been one of activity, and full of interesting events, strange and 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP THE SOUTH. 397 
 
 varied ; but these points are not yet legitmately the property 
 of the reading public. They have made their impress upon her 
 genius, and the reader will finci Vivid and suggestive echoes of 
 them in her poems. 
 
 Her first volume, and.thusi far her pnly one, appeared in 1867, 
 entitled Minding the Gap, an^ Other Poems. Her versification 
 is musical, but sometjn;ies irregular. I quote the poem referred 
 to above — Going Out and Coming /«— which' is not only musi- 
 cal and suggestive, but nervous and well sustained : — 
 
 Going outto fame and triuniph, - - 
 
 Going out to love and light. 
 Coming in.to pain ^lid sorrow. 
 
 Coming in to gloom and night. 
 Going out TMth joy and gladness, 
 
 Coming in with woe and sin ; 
 Ceaseless streams of restless pilgrims 
 
 Going out and coniing in. 
 
 Through the portals of the homestead. 
 
 From beneath the blooming vine : 
 To the trumpet-tone^ of glory, 
 
 Where the bays, and laurels twine ; 
 From the loving home caresses 
 
 ■To the chill voice of the world, ' 
 , Going out with gallant canvass 
 
 To the. summer breeze usfuiled, 
 
 Coming back all worn and weary. 
 
 Weary with the wodd^s cold breath }, ■. 
 Coming, to the dear gld homestead. 
 
 Coming in to age and jdeath, 
 Weary qf. all empty flattery. 
 
 Weary of all ceaseless din, 
 Weary of its heartless sneering, 
 
 Coming from the bleak world iiu 
 
 Going out with hopes of glory, 
 Coming in with sorrow dai-k; 
 
 Going out with safls all flying. 
 Coming in with mastless barque. 
 
398 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Restless stream of pilgrims, striving 
 
 Wreaths of fame or love to win, 
 From the doorvifays of the homesteads ' 
 
 Going out and coming in. 
 
 A portrait published in the volume of poems gives a fair idea 
 of Miss Moore's physiognomy:' Her manuscript is neat and le- 
 gible, though the chirograph is rapid, and, for a lady, very round. 
 It indicates persistence and energy, a strong will with an abid-' 
 ing purpose, strong feeling and impatience of restraint; ind 
 little of what goes under the general name of punctiliousness or 
 nicety of finish. 
 
 MRS. ROSALIE MILLER MURPHY.; 
 
 The appearance of Destiny; or Life as it is. Introduced Mrs. 
 Murphy to novel readers as an author of fiction. It appeared 
 in 1867, having been written five years. Among our young 
 writers, she has shown an unusual degree of energy ; and her 
 debut book rapidly passed through several editions. It abounds 
 with the faults of very young authors, but is spirited, and carries 
 the reader through a variety of phases of Southern society. It 
 very decidedly impresses us with the idea that the author of it 
 can, and will do a great deal better in the same line. It is, in 
 fact, the work of a mere girl, written, as it was, before she was 
 eighteen. 
 
 Mr.s. Murphy, n'ee Miller, is a native of South Carolina, 
 and is related to the family of Governor Miller, of half a centuiy 
 ago. She was educated in Columbia ; lived a while in Georgia ; 
 and, in i860, went to Montgomery, Alabama, where she re- 
 mained during the war ; and, in 1865, was married to Dr. Z. T. 
 Murphy, an Alabamian by residence. In 1867, they removed 
 to New-York City. Previous to her marriage, Mrs. Murphy 
 contributed frequently, principally in verse, to the newspapers, 
 under the nom de plume,. ol Rosalie. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF IffE SOUTH. 399 
 
 Besides Destiny,! learn that Mrs. Mnfphy -has ready for 
 publication three other volumes : Mistrust, a novel ; Stray 
 Waifs, a miscellan^J and Poems. These are to be given to the 
 pubhc in due course of time. 
 
 I. E. NAGLE, k.D. 
 
 Dr. Nagle, of New Orleans, has written a good deal" of 
 poetry for the press of the Southwest ; and one of. his lyrics, at 
 least — A Home that I Love — has l?een published witlv music. 
 He frequently writes under the nam de plume ol Cousin Nourma. 
 
 TTie Origin of the Jiose is a fair specimen pf his lyric verse : — • 
 
 A little angel lost its wings 
 
 Of pearly tint and lovely red ; 
 They fell upon a thorn's sharp stings. 
 
 And to the monster thus were wed. 
 
 The velvet leaves sweet Flora kissed. 
 
 And gave the soft, carnation hue 
 That tints it with a painted mist 
 
 More lovely than the violet's blue. 
 
 The sun then stopped and smiled a ray 
 
 Of brightest light upon the flower. 
 And dimpled with its amorous play 
 
 The petal's c^eek and blushing bower. 
 
 A cloud came softly floating o'er. 
 
 And dropped a tear of lustre, too ; 
 Then brighter was the bloom it wore. 
 
 And poets' themes the buds it grew. 
 
 Since then, sad hearts have often bled, 
 
 And dyied the rose With crimson hue ; 
 But some with gold its leaves have wed. 
 
 And mingled their soft tints with ru& 
 
4O0 LIVING Wn ITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Dear hearts, that love.soft nature's face, • 
 ThriU with a joy that heavenward flows, . 
 
 To l?le§s the angel whose svveet grace 
 And brigfit wing gave to earth the rose. 
 
 JOSIAH CLARK NO^T, M.D. 
 
 Dr. NoiT is a son of Hon. Abraham Nptt^^and was born in 
 Utiion District, South Carolina, On Satui'day, the 31st of Marbh, 
 1804. The next year his father moved to Columbia, where our 
 author was educated, fie graduated in tHe South Catdliha Col- 
 lege in 1824. Three years later, he graduated in medicine at 
 the college in Philadelphia, and for two years after was Demon- 
 strator of Anatomy to Drs. Physick and Hosapk, He then — 
 in 1829 — returned to Columbia, and practiced medicine until 
 1835, when he went abroad, and spent two jfars in profes- 
 sional studies. At the expiration of that tour, he returned to 
 the United States, and fixed his home in Mobile, Alabama, 
 where he remained in the practice of his pTofessibn, and in0;og- 
 nate scientific studies, until 1857, when, he , was , called to the 
 chair of Anatomy in the University of; Louisiana, but resigned 
 that position after one session of lectures, and returned to his 
 profession in Mobile. He ' shortly after succeeded in estab- 
 lishing a medical college in Mobile, which' was endowed by 
 the Legislature of that state with $50,000, as "a branch of 
 the State University. Its first session opened in November, 
 1859. After the war. Dr. Nott removed to Baltimore, and, in 
 1868, to New-York City, where he is now engaged in the prac- 
 tice of his profession and in writing for^ first-class periodicals. 
 
 Dr. Nott has written r — 
 
 1. Two Lectures, oti the Connection between the Biblical and 
 Physical History of Man. This is considered Dr. Nott's chief 
 work. Published in 1849. Octavo. 
 
 2. Physical History of the Jewish Race. 1850. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE "SOUTH. 4(yt 
 
 3. Types of Manlund; or Ethnological ^esearcJies^ based upon 
 the Ancient Monument's, Paintings," Sculptures,' and Crania of 
 Races, and upon their Natural^ Geographical, Philplogical, and 
 Biblical History— illustrated by selections from ' the papers of 
 S. G. Morton, and by additions from L/Agassiz, W. tlsher, and 
 H. S. Patterson; an immense octavo, published in Philadel- 
 phia, 1854. In this work Dr; Nott is a colabourer with Geo. R. 
 Gliddon. 
 
 4. Indigenous Races oJJhe Egrtjfi; or New Chapters of Ethno- 
 logical Inquiry ; including monographs on special departments, 
 by Alfred Maury, 'Francis Pulszky, -ahd f . Aitken Meigs. This 
 is also a joint work with George R. Gliddon. Published, in 
 Philadelphia, 1857. Quarto. " ["' 
 
 The object of these wdrks is to controvert the hitherto com- 
 monly-received the6ry of the unity of the human race, by proving 
 that the types of mankind existing to-day are the same that 
 existed three thpiisand years ago; and that there is no evidence 
 that, for at least five thousa,nd yedrs, anyone type has changed 
 to another. We believe that, through these discussions and 
 those since published by Agassiz, the prevailing theory in 
 America now is that the i:<i,ce of mari is not of common origin. 
 Diversity of races is the ""orthodox" theory, accordingly. 
 
 Dr. Nott has alsg, cpntribiited largely to periodical literature, 
 — to The American Journal of Medical Science, Charleston Medi- 
 cal Journal, JV. O- Medical Journal, Demote/ s Review, The 
 Southern Quarterly Review, and others '; always upon his fa- 
 vourite subjects — Medical Science, Natural History Of Man, Life 
 Insurance, and cognate subjects. ' He has 3,lso translated Gou- 
 piVs Exposition of Brossai s Medical Doctrines, with Appendix 
 by Translator. This work was published in Columbia, South 
 Carolina, in 1830. He is to-day contributing to The Southern 
 Review, recently established in Baltimore. 
 
402 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MISS FLORENCE F. O'CONNOR. 
 
 So far as I am Uiformed, this writer has written but oije book 
 — The Heroism of the Confederacy; or Truth and fustic f. The 
 book appeared in New Orleans, in i86g- and wa^ largely 
 praised by some Southern journa,ls, and grimly ridiculed by some 
 Northern critics, and no doubt received injustice from both. 
 
 HENRY ONDERDONK, A-M., 
 
 Mr. Onderdonk was some time ago P|resident of the Mary- 
 land Agricultural College J and has recently appeared as tlie 
 author of A History of Maryland upon the Basis of McSherry,^ 
 for the use of schools. This was published Jn BaJtinjpre, in tb^ 
 year 1868. It is said to be winning its way into favo\i): an(J, use, 
 and is favourably noticed in 'J'he Southern Review, 
 
 J. M. P. OTTS. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Otts is a native of South Carolina, born about 
 the year 1837 in Union District of that state. He graduated^in 
 the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Columbia, the capital 
 of his native state, a few years agoj then did .pastoral service at 
 Columbia, Tennessee; and is now pastor. of a church in Greens^ 
 boro, Alabama. He has written but one book — Nicodemus 
 With fesus — a polemic on the nature of Christ's functions 
 and offices. He has written several articles for the staider 
 reviews, The Beautiful hdug one of his themes. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 403 
 
 JOHN W. OVERALL. 
 
 Of the better class among the early settlers of the Old Domin- 
 ion, several generations ago, was the family of Overall. It unites 
 the once antagonistic races of Norman and Saxon. It chose its 
 resting place in the beautiful Valley of Virginia. There was bom 
 the subject of the present sketcli — in Shenandoah (now Page) 
 County, upon the Piedmont banks of the picturesque Shenan- 
 doah. 
 
 While yet a boy he was moved to Alabama, and later to 
 Mississippi. In Columbus, of the latter state, he studied law 
 under Governor Tucker; and subsequently practiced law with 
 success both in Columbus and in Mobile, Alabama. His Con- 
 nection with politics, journalism and fight literature, began in the 
 latter cky ; his first poems appearing in the Mobile Tribune and 
 in Graham's Magazine. 
 
 About 1856, Mr. Overall became a citizen of New Orleans. 
 He was there for several years political and literary editor of The 
 Daily Delta, and also literary editor of The Daily True Delia — 
 both powers in their day. 
 
 During the war, Mr. Overall established and conducted for a 
 while The Southern: Punch, in BLichmohd, Virginia. 
 
 After the war he returned to The Crescent City, and there 
 established a literary weekly journal called The South. He has 
 meanwhile held a prominent position, confidential and advisory, 
 in the Mayoralty of New Orleans; and holds the same at this 
 time. , His main distinction has been upon the political arena ; 
 and here, as a Democrat of the Calhoun States' Rights school, 
 few men have been more prominent or exercised a greater 
 influence than he. ' » 
 
 He was an attached friend of the late Judge Meek of Alabama, 
 and the Judge dedicated the first portion of his Songs and Poems 
 of the South to him. 
 
 The occasional poems of Mr. Overall have been reproduced 
 in almost every journal of the South and many of the North. 
 
404 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 His labour and use have been given to, pontics through journal- 
 ism; while his recreation— the play-iiiipulse of his nature, with 
 its uttering power, — has been given to poetic art. .ii 
 
 A personal sketch of Mr. Overall which appeared in a Virginia 
 newspaper characterizes him as ','tall as Willis, and fiery as 
 Hotspur." , . . . 
 
 His chirograph, like his style, is never obscure; but clear, 
 deliberate, round, and ?iltoost as ornate as Poe's. Self-assertion 
 starts out fi-om every line traced by his pen, a.nd. finish marks it 
 all. ' ■ ■ 
 
 These qualities enter info all that he does; and appear with 
 happy effect, notwithstanding the Hotspur tendencies of his spirit, 
 in his poetry. 
 
 In the following linps To a Miniature there is to be seen a 
 characteristic strikingly traceable in his chirograph — a fondness 
 for surprises, even at the sacrifice of what for any other use he 
 would deem a desiirabledaintiness. An example of this appears 
 at the close of the fourth stanza, , I give the poem entire : — 
 
 'Tis strange that Art can weave a face 
 
 So radiant and divjne, 
 So eloquent with thought and grace, 
 
 So beautiful as thine. 
 I almost see the warm blood seek 
 
 The blue veiis on thy brow, 
 And glow upon thy pearly cheek. 
 
 So life-like seemest thou. 
 
 I love thy darkfeye's sunny glee ; 
 
 There's something in its glance 
 That tells thy heart is fond and free, 
 
 A.nd full of love's romance. 
 The dimpled lake, the sky's soft glow. 
 
 Can no such charms impart. 
 As those which thou dost mutely throw 
 
 Around the burning heart; 
 
tlVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 40S 
 
 And o'er that bosom, white as snow, 
 
 Entwined.in thy fair finger, 
 Dark, dreaitiy silken ringlets flbw^ 
 
 As if they loved to linger ; 
 And blest as he,aveil are they blest, 
 
 Rcjcked in their sea-wave motion. 
 Like shadows on the tiny: breast 
 
 Of some sweet mimic ocean. 
 
 Oh ! could'st thou break the silent spell 
 
 That binds thy lips so long. 
 Each soft; enchanting tone would, tell 
 
 That thou wert bom for song. 
 To me, ArtVmelody but mocks — 
 
 For, in' the gilded Soufh,_ 
 The "softest, sweetest music-box 
 
 Is woman's rosy mouth ! 
 
 How fair these daughters of the sun. 
 
 These black-eyed, sparkling things. 
 These jewejs of the Holy One, 
 
 These angels without wings ! 
 One gplden look, one crystal tear. 
 
 One sweet, emphatic wordi 
 Is worth the wealth of Ind, so dear. 
 
 Or all we've seen or heard. 
 
 Lo ! dreams of love fled by, yet sweet. 
 
 Come back to me again, 
 Like parted angels when they meet 
 
 In Aiden's dear domain. 
 And gazing in, those orbs of light, 
 
 Did I but know thee, girl, 
 I'd brave the battle's fiercest fight 
 
 Fof one bright sinile or curl ! 
 
 To the exclusion' of even more melodious pieces — pieces with 
 perhaps richer play of fancy and livelier touches of creative imag- 
 ination — I submit t%e Bards, as to a degree demonstrative as 
 well as illustrative of his poetic art : — 
 
4o6 LlVim) WRITERS OF THE SOUTff. 
 
 In their high heroic measure. 
 
 In their high heroic truth, 
 Live the bards throughout all ages, 
 
 In the quenchless fire of youth ; 
 We revel in their visions, 
 
 And ■we love the songs they sing, 
 When they strike the harp of glory 
 
 Like the Israelitish king. 
 
 They have read the starry heavens — 
 
 These diviners of the stars — 
 Read Uranus and the Pleiades, 
 
 And the fiery planet Mars; 
 They have soared among the planets. 
 
 They have svirept the fields of Time; 
 They have soared up in the spirit — 
 
 Bards heroic and sublime ! 
 
 And they gather from the planets. 
 
 Where their spirit-feet have trod, 
 Light and supernal wisdom. 
 
 And a lucid proof of God; 
 And feel the truth eternal 
 
 O'er their yearning spirits steal. 
 That the Real is the Ideal, 
 
 That the Ideal is the Real ! 
 
 They come, like John the Baptist, 
 
 In the wilderness of Thought, 
 Preaching in the world's Judea 
 
 What the holy Teacher taught; 
 They come with lips of wisdom. 
 
 And they strike the sounding lyre — 
 Lips radiant with the glow of love 
 
 And high prophetic fire. 
 
 They siunmon white-browed Helen, 
 
 From the old-forgotten strife, 
 And Platea's men, and Marathon's, 
 
 To the vestibule of life. 
 We see the glittering of the sted 
 
 Under the Latian stars, 
 The beaks of the Roman eagles, ' 
 
 And the red, round shield of Mars, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. A°^ 
 
 They tell of brave old legends, 
 
 Legeftds of the priestly age; 
 Of ladye fair, with golden hair. 
 
 Courtly peer and gentle page. 
 We see the knights and barons 
 
 Comjing forth in martial line. 
 And Richard of the Lion-heart 
 
 On the plains of Palestine. 
 
 We mark the pennon and the plume, 
 
 We see the shivering lance. 
 And Cressy with, its bowmen. 
 
 And the troubadours of France. 
 We mark the Icnights at Chevy Chase, 
 
 We see the banners fly. 
 And the royal Stuart riding down 
 
 To Flodden Hill to die. 
 
 Ah ! the Fast with all its visions 
 
 Comes before us in its prime — 
 All the olden, golden glory 
 
 Of the golden, olden time. 
 Thus in high, heroic measure. 
 
 And in high, heroic truth, 
 tive the bards throughout all ages^ 
 
 In the quenchless fire of youth. 
 
 Unlike the men who speak alone 
 
 For the passing things of time. 
 The bards speak for all ages 
 
 In the lofty words of rhyme. 
 Not for the coming morrow, 
 
 Not for the brief to-day. 
 Stir the bards the harp's wild pulses^ 
 
 Sing the bards their, noble lay. 
 
 And they die not, these heroic bards, 
 
 They live on with the stars. 
 With Uranus and the Pleiades, 
 
 And the fiery planet Mars. 
 They are spirits of Earth and Aiden, 
 
 Earth and Aiden hear them sing. 
 When they strike the hai^ of glory 
 
 like the Israelitish king. 
 
408 tlVING WRITERS OF THE. SOUTH. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY PECK. 
 
 Professor Peck has had a life of great variety, but not of great 
 adventure. 
 
 He was bom in the city of Augusta, Georgia, on Thursday, 
 the 30th of December, 1830. His paternal ancestry is English, 
 while the maternal is Huguenotic. The point from which the 
 Pecks emigrated- to America is Hingham, England; and the 
 dale, 1635. A residence of over two centuries in this country has 
 developed a character distinctly American, £^nd Professor Peck 
 illustrates that character in a high degree. The American is an 
 iconoclast, whose theory is to let the dead past be dead and to 
 make the most of the living present — to let yesterday go, and 
 secure to-day ; save to-morrow if practicable, but attend first to 
 to-day. 
 
 William Henry Peck commenced his education at a boardr 
 ing school in New Haven, Connecticut, :where he remained 
 seven years. The two years following theise ' he spent at field- 
 sports in Florida, whither his father had rneanwhile removed. 
 
 In 1845, at the age of fifteen, he entered thej Baptist College 
 at Georgetown, Kentucky, where he remained but a short time ; 
 his next step being to enter the Western Military Institute, Ken- 
 tucky, as a cadet. 
 
 In 1849 he entered Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachu- 
 setts, where he graduated as Bachelor of Arts in 1853, at the 
 age of twenty-three. The next year he married, and located in 
 New Orleans, whither his father had meanwhile removed. 
 
 In 1856 he was elected Professor of Belles-Lettres, History, 
 and Elocution in the University of Louisiana, which position he 
 held for three years. He then went to New York, and pursued 
 literature as a profession with decided success — success in a 
 practical way. 
 
 In i860 he returned to Georgia and established a literary 
 quarto, called The Georgia Weekly. The political excitement 
 of the day proved top much for The Weekly ; and after a brief 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 409 
 
 struggle for existence, it went down. In November of that year, 
 he was elected President of the Masonic Female College, at 
 Greenville, Georgia, at which place' he fixed his home, reviving 
 his defunct quarto in the form of a county sheet. He held this 
 double positipn of president and editor for three years. 
 
 In August, 1863, he resigned the presidency of the College at 
 Greenville, to accept the chair of Natural Sciences and Modern 
 Languages in the Le Vert Female College, atTalbotton, Georgia. 
 He moved his newspaper with him ; and in the same way con- 
 tinued his duplex editorial and professorial labours through the 
 greater part of the war, during the latter years of which . the 
 thunders of Mars were sometimes sounding close around the 
 scene of his peaceful pursuits. He continued these pursuits 
 often under extremely adverse circumstances — sometimes, it 
 is said, acting in the complex capacity of editor, compositor, 
 pressman, and devil, as well as professor and president. Mean- 
 while, and through it all, his newspaper never failed to come to 
 time nor his classes to recitation. There was activity enough 
 in all that. 
 
 He began literary life as a poet at the age of fifteen — about 
 the time he first entere'd his first college; but some of these 
 earlyteen verses fell into the hands of a savage and tartarly critic 
 — a Baptist preacher named Bruce — who acted under -the^ im- 
 pression that trash ought to be called trash. He so styled it ; 
 and the poet's Muse (whoever she was, for the tradition has not 
 brought down her name,) became- at once shy, and has remained 
 so ever since. This falling into Bruce's hands was fortunate for 
 our young author, for it no doubt saved him from the fate of 
 beiiig a second-rate poet, a thing which neither gods' nor men 
 can stand. Diverted from the quieter paths of verse, our author' 
 betook himself to fiction, and very soon won a certain distinction 
 in tiiat more remunerative line. He has written voluminously f- 
 more voluminously, I believe, than any other author in the South, 
 except Mr. Simms ; and has found it .profitable, perhaps more 
 so than any other writer in the South. 
 
 35 
 
410 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOVTH. 
 
 His books are:' — 
 
 1. Antoinette de Bordelairs. A tale, published in 1857. 
 
 2. The Brother's Vengeance; published in 1859. This tale 
 was quite a success in its day' and . line ; and was written in 
 two weeks — written at the rate of about forty pages of foolscap 
 manuscript a day. < • ,■ 
 
 3. The Moctroon. A burlesque on Bourcicault's celebrated, 
 and at that day very popular, play-^ The Octoroon. The bur- 
 lesque had quite a run with Christ/ s Minstrels id New- York 
 City. 
 
 4. Virginia Glencaire. 1868. 
 
 , 5. Luke Hammond, i860. This tale was written m twelve 
 nights. 
 
 6. The Renegade, i860. 
 
 7. TIu Conspirators of New Orleans, i860. This story was 
 first presented in book form during the war, in 1863, the. author 
 himself setting up type, and doing mubh of the press work on 
 his hand-press. It was one of the few successful publications 
 issued during those Confederate times. 
 
 8. The Phantom. 1862. 
 
 9. Tlie Confederate Flag of the Ocean. 
 
 10. The Maids and Matrons of Virginia. 
 
 11. Bertha Seely — was published serially in The Old Guard 
 during the year 1866. 
 
 12. Beatrice. 1866. 
 
 13. Roderic Harrow. 1866. 
 
 14. Charles Marion. 1866. 
 
 15. Marina. 1,866. 
 
 16. The McDonalds, or the Ashes of Southern Homes. Pub- 
 lished by The Metropolitan Record press in 1867. This, is the 
 acjvqiltures of a Confederate family, driven before, Slierman's 
 army from Atlanta to Columbia; and deals with the varied inci- 
 dents of such an experience, with pictures of many revolting 
 phgrp^ of war-life: and war passions, presenting some vivid and 
 true pictures of war human-nature. The colouring is often 
 overdone, and the style in general that known as the spasmodic. 
 
LJvisre wsirjsms of the soura. 411 
 
 1 7. Several utipublished- dramas, in the stirring vein. ■' ' ' 
 
 18. An immense nurabCT ofi minor tales, which have had their 
 day, and in general their success. . Among these I mention a 
 few that are known more or less to many readers of newspaper 
 fiction — the reading million : Glare and'G learn, Poisoned Almond, 
 British Dragoon^, Red_ DwarJ, Boat-builder' s^ Daughter, Rupert 
 the Pirate, The Biirglar, The Stone Mason, Adah Storm, Stab in 
 th4 Dark, The Unseen, The Detected. Traitor, The Gambler's 
 Pate, The Lost Ping, The Tiny Blue Shoe, The Bag ^ Nails, 
 A Louisianian in New York, Coots, Wild Pgdhurn, a tale of the 
 time of Cromwell, issued serially in 7}^^ York Weekly during 
 .1867 — and so forth. ..... 
 
 Our author has contributed from time to time to The Nt^w 
 Orleans True Delta, New Orleans Sufiday Delta, The Field and 
 pirefide. New York Day Book, Pedger, Sunday Times, New 
 York. Weekly, New York ZM,die^ Magazine,, Old Guard, Metro- 
 politan Record, New Orleans Mirror,. Seltna Visitor, Hinghctm 
 (England) Journal, and a host of others. 
 
 From the facts given it will be. apparent that Professor Peck 
 writes with great ease, and great rapidity, and for the million — 
 the blood-smd-tliunder-loving million — and 'that'- he '.gives us 
 strong preparations of mingled dangers, dungeons, and daggers ; 
 assassinations and assignations; lawsuits, suicides, ajod seduc- 
 tions ; graves, greedy ghosts, and guilt ; skeletanSj. corpses, and 
 capsules ; gorgons, spectres, and chimeras dire ! 
 
 There is pervading most of his tales a lappard-Iike tone of the 
 spasmodic, that stamps cliaracter upon his writings as a whole. 
 
 In person, Professor Peck is powerfully built, being five feet 
 ten in height and weighing a hundred and eighty, or .nimety 
 pounds;: is active <and< Hvely? speaks much, well; and readily; 
 has black.hair, beard,, and eyes^ and dark complexion ; wears fuU 
 beard and moustache, /in the style known as American.; and has 
 small extremities. 
 
 He is tiie fa.ther of a large family, aaid lives at Talbottda^ 
 Georgia, but spends a good deal of his time in the city of New 
 
412 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 York. He is a regular contributor to The Ledger, with a salary. 
 His chirograph is mercantile, practical, fluent, rapid, legible, 
 not precise at all, persistent, eager, restless, and ready. 
 
 MISS VIRGINIA PENNY. 
 
 The Employments of Woman, by Miss Penny of Louisville, 
 Kentucky, is a volume designed to show what a woman can do 
 — quid femina possit, z.% Virgil has it — in these times of self- 
 reliance and woman's need to work. It is an eminently practical 
 book, telling exactly what things woman can do with profit; 
 such as straw-plaiting, the manufacture of willow-ware into 
 baskets and the like, bee culture, canning fruits, making pre- 
 serves, packing pickles, and preparing jams and jellies; besides 
 a score of other things to do, requiring skill without strength, and 
 coming within the scope of woman's abilities. 
 
 MRS. ALMIRA H. LINCOLN PHELPS. 
 
 Mrs. Freeman, in her Women of the South Distinguished in 
 Literature, makes mention of the fact that of the distinguished 
 literary women of the United States, only two are members of 
 the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Of 
 these two, one is Northern — Maria Mitchell, the astronomer of 
 Nantucket, — and one Southern — .the subject of this paper. 
 
 Mrs. Phelps, nee Hart, was bom^ in Berlin, Connecticut, in 
 the year 1793, and is the youngest of a large family. ■ Her edu- 
 cation was received partly from her sister, Mrs. Emma Wilard, 
 well known in school circles; and partly at the Seminary of 
 Miss Hinsdale, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. At nineteeil ' she 
 was married to Mr Simeon Lincoln, editor of The Connecticut 
 Mirror, published in Hartford. 
 
LiyiNG .WKIT£RS OF THE SOUTH. 413 
 
 At the age of thirty she was left a widow with two children. 
 Tiiis circumstance did much to bring out the vigourous self- 
 reliance and untiring energy that have so eminently character- 
 ized her through her long life of literary and scientific usefulness. 
 She at once set herself to a completion of her education, studied 
 the ancient classics, the natural sciences, and drawing and paint- 
 ing ; and then passed seven years combining study with teaching, 
 in her sister's Seminary at Troy, New York. 
 
 In 183 1 she became Mrs. Phelps by marriage with Hon. John 
 Phelps of Vennont. 
 
 Eight years after this she was chosen to preside over the 
 Female Seminary at West Chester, Pennsylvania j and in 1841 
 came to Baltimore, and established the Pktapsco Female Insti- 
 tute. This institution was widely known as one of the first in 
 the South, and its patronage was very extensive. She resigned 
 the principalship of the institute after fourteen years of eminent 
 success. j' •.- 
 
 In 1849 Mrs. Phelps was again left a yidow. Since the resig- 
 nation of her position as head of her pet institute, she has re- 
 sided in Baltimore, enjoyijig a retirement of ease and elegance. 
 Mrs. Freeman thus gracefully refers to Mrs. Phelps in her pres- 
 ent retirement : ^— 
 
 " She still holds herself in tender relation to her pupils, and not 
 a week passes without bringing to her a kindly recognition from 
 some one of her larjge family of intellectual daughters. 
 
 " Represented in every state of the Union by those flourishing 
 
 ■ offshoots of her institution, as well as by her valuable, scientific 
 
 works, surrounded by cultivated friends, she retains her youthful 
 
 'freshness and vigour, and demonstrates the art — so nearly a 'lost 
 
 art ' among American women — of 'growing old gracefully.' " 
 
 Mrs. Phelps has written books upon a great variety of sub- 
 jects — dramas, tales, text-books, translations, lectures, lyrics, 
 and dictionaries — and has done all with fair measure of success, 
 and some with eminent ability. She -has written also for -the 
 private stage; has contributed to an immense number of period- 
 3S* 
 
414 LIVING WRITERS OF rnE SOVTH. 
 
 icals ; and has edited The Patapsco Magazine. Most of her 
 scientific and class-books have been recently revised and some 
 re-written. A Philadelphia house has just announced a new 
 edition of several of these. 
 
 The following are the principal of Mrs. Phelps's works of 
 various kinds: — 
 
 1. Dolly Ann Grimes. A drama for private tiieatricals. 
 
 2. The Reformation. ._ A drama; 
 
 3. Ida Norman, or Trials and Their Uses. A tale with a moral. 
 
 4. Lectures on Botany, by Mrs. Lincoln, and known under her 
 name. 
 
 5. Fdmilic^r Lectures on Botany, by Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 6. A Supplement to Lectures on Botany for Familiar Teach- 
 ing of the Natural Sciences, 1 860. 
 
 7. Botany for Beginners, by Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 8. Lectures on Chemistry. 
 
 9. Manual of Chemistry, by Mrs. Phelps (as are also the 
 following.) 
 
 10. Chemistry for Beginners. 
 
 11. Lectures on Natural Philosopkj/. 
 
 12. Philosophy for Beginners. 
 
 13. Dictionary of Chemistry; a translation from the Frendi 
 with History of the Science. 
 
 14. Geology for Beginnets, 
 
 15. Female Student and Fireside Friend. 
 
 16. Caroline Wester ly^ A juvenile story. 
 
 17. Translation of Madame Necker de Za.vissaxt'% Progressive' 
 Education. 
 
 \?>. A Mother's Journal. A joint work by Mrs. Phelps and 
 Mrs. Willard. 
 
 19. Hours with My Pupils. , 
 
 20. Christian Household- A volume published for the benefit 
 of the Baltimore Church Home. 
 
 21. Our Country. A duodecimo of 423, pages, containing 
 contributions from other pens also, pubMshed in, 1864, for the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF. THE SOUTH. 4lS 
 
 • 
 
 benefit of the State Fair which was given in the interests of the 
 Federal hospitals. . ■ . 
 
 22. A number of articles sufficient to make a good-sized vol- 
 ume, contributed to Tlie National Quarterly Review, upon Eng- 
 land under the Stuarts, Glance at the Fine Arts, Foreign Writers 
 on America, Madame de Maintenort and her Times, The de 
 Saussures, Popular Botany, and a number contributed to the 
 Church Review, among which are Goethe, "His Genius and 
 Morals, and The Character and Writings of Mrs. Sigourney. 
 
 23. Some poems of an elegaic character — one upon the 
 death of Dr. William Darlington, the distinguished botanist; 
 thait of Col. Eugene Van Ness ; and that of Charles Gilmore. 
 
 24. In 1866 before the American Association, of which she is 
 a member, in the meeting at Buffalo, was read a papefr written by 
 her upon the late Edward Hitchcock, the Christian Philosopher. 
 
 25. A series of biographical sketches for the Philadelphia 
 Home Weekly, under the general title of Our Picture Gallery — 
 " sketches of public characters, women who have been prominent 
 in social life, historical scenes, and so forth, with a spice of poli- 
 tics, glancing from the past to the present, and with friendly' re- 
 gards towards the South, giving radicalism an occasional squint." 
 The series- numbers near fifty, I believe, and is still going on. 
 
 It would probably do Mrs. I'h^lps a partial injustice to give 
 
 specimens of her poetical composition; because that class of 
 
 her literary work belongs to her girlhood and less mature years. 
 
 Her reputation, now national and very high, rests upon graver 
 
 .works than her poetical Muse gave birth to. 
 
 The handwriting of Mrs. Phelps is very striking, indicating 
 at first blush a singular youthfulness ; and Characterized by a de- 
 gree of persistence and continuity that I have never seen to the 
 same degree in the chirograph of woman. It is rather hastily 
 written, but full, elaborate, and well digested. 
 
41 6 LIVING. WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 ALBERT PIKE. 
 
 General Pike is a native of Boston, and was born on Friday, 
 the 29th of December, 1809. Of his father, our author says: 
 "He was a journeyman shoemaker, who worked hard, paid his 
 taxes, and gave all his children the benefit of an education," 
 And that character is equal in dignity to an earldom. Until six- 
 teen, Albert studied at the Academy of Farmington ; then entered 
 Cambridge, but, finding the expenses too heavy, he left and went 
 to teaching. In 1831 he set out alone westward, then southward, 
 and finally halted at Santa Fg. In a year or two he worked his 
 way, by teaching and writing, to Little Rock, Arkansas, where 
 he became editor of The Advocate. In 1834 he married, and 
 about the same time was admitted to the bar. Little Rock, we 
 believe, has been the theatre of his operatiqns as a lawyer, 
 litterateur, and politician since that time. He served with dis- 
 tinction in the Mexican war. His title of General comes frpni 
 his service in the Confederate cause during the late war. He is 
 to-day upon the editorial staff of the Msm^Yti^. Appeal. 
 
 General Pike's hterary productions are: — 
 
 I. Poems and Prose Sketches, which appeared about 1825, 
 through a publishing house in Boston. The volume is miscel- 
 laneous, if not heterogeneous, containing prose and poetry — 
 prose accounts of his western travels and adventures ; and poetry 
 that had accumulated during the preceding years, composed in 
 wilds and solitudes, from Boston to Santa F6. , His preface to . 
 the book says: "What I have written has been a transcript of 
 my own feelings j too much so, perhaps, for the purposes' of fame. 
 Writing has always been to me a eornmynion with my own soul. 
 These poems were coinposed in desertion and loneliness, and 
 sometimes in places of fear and danger. My only sources of 
 thought have been my own mind, and Nature, who has appeared 
 to me generally in desolate guise and utter dreariness, and not 
 unfrequently in subUmity." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 417 
 
 2. Hymns to the Gods. These Hymns were originally written 
 during the author's school- teaching days, when the classics were 
 liis daily food. They were first published in Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine, during the year 1839 ; and, meeting with great favour there, 
 were eagerly taken up here; and several years after — about 
 1853, I suppose -7- were envolumed. The Gods thus hymned 
 are the veritable "grand old Gods of Rome" j such as Neptune, 
 Apollo, Venus, Diana, Mercury, Bacchus, Ceres, and Somnus. 
 While the names are Latin, there is much of the character of 
 the Grecian divinities, the usual modern confusion of ideas 
 properly quite clearly distinct. The Hymns are vigorous and 
 full of thought; not of music, however. 
 
 3. Nugce, by Albert Pike, printed for "private distribution, ap- 
 peared in 1854. Only a hundred and sixty copies were printed. 
 This contains a collection of his miscellaneous poems, embracing 
 the Hymns to the Gods. 
 
 I shall give, as an illustrative specimen of General Pike's 
 verse, his lyric, To the Mocking Bird: — 
 
 Thou glorious mocker of the world ! I hear 
 
 Thy many voices ringing through the glooms 
 Of these green solitudes; and all the clear. 
 Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear 
 
 And floods the heart, Oyer the sphered tombs 
 Of vanislied nations rolls thy music tide. 
 
 No light from history's starlike page illumes 
 The memory of those nations — they have died. 
 
 None cares for them but thou, and thou mayst sing. 
 
 Perhaps, o'er me, as now thy song doth ring 
 Over their bones by whom thoif once wast deified. 
 
 Thou scomer of all cities ! Thou dost leave 
 
 The world's turmoil and never-ceasing din. 
 Where one from others no existence weaves. 
 Where the old sighs, the young turns grey and grieves. 
 
 Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within ; 
 And thou dost flee into the broad green woods. 
 
 And With thy soul of music thou dost win 
 
4i8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Their heart to harmony. No jai: intrudes 
 Upon thy sounding melody. Oh, where, 
 Amid the sweet musicians of the air, 
 
 Is one so dear as thou to these old solitudes ? 
 
 Ha ! what a. burst was that ! The ^olian strain 
 Goes floating through the tangled passages 
 
 Of the lone woods, — and now it comes again — 
 , A multitudinous melody — like a rain 
 Of glossy music under echoing trees. 
 
 Over a ringing lake. It wraps the soul 
 With a bright harmony of happiness. 
 
 Even as a gem is wrapt, when round it roll 
 Their waves of brilliant flame, till we become. 
 E'en with the excess of our deep pleasure, duittb. 
 
 And pant like some swift runner clinging to the. goal. 
 
 I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee. 
 Amid the eloquent grandeur of the shades. 
 
 Alone witli nature ; but it, may not be. 
 
 I have to struggle with the troubling sea 
 Of human life,, until existence fades 
 
 Into death's dai-khess. Thou wilt sing and soar 
 
 Through the thick woods and shadow-checkered glades. 
 
 While nought of sorrow casts a dimness o'er 
 The brilliance of thy heart ; but I riuist wear, 
 As now, ttiy gairmenting of paiu and care, ' 
 
 As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore. 
 
 Yet why complain ? What though fond hopes deferred 
 Have overshadowed Youth's green paths with gloom ! 
 
 Still, joy's ricH music is not all unheard; 
 
 There's a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird. 
 To welcome me, within my humble home. 
 
 There is an eyej with love's devoti9n bright. 
 The darkness of existence to ijlume 1 , 
 
 Then why complain ? When 4eath sliall cast Jiis blight , 
 Over the spirit, then my l^pnies shal]Lrest 
 Beneath these trees; and from thy swelling breast, 
 
 O'er them thy song shall pour lik^ a rich flood of light. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 419 
 
 The theme is highly poetical, but it admits of greater variety 
 of tones in its utterance than General Pike has given it Only 
 the solemn morale can reconcile us to the want of imitative — 
 onomatopoetic — movement in the earlier portions of the poem. 
 The measiu-e is too stately. The poem has more thought, but 
 less music than Judge Meek's Mocking Bird; more energy and 
 pathos, but less pla)rful fancy- than To the Mocking Bird of For- 
 tunatus Crosby; more earnestness, but less Ijrrical flexibility 
 than a poem on the same subject by Richard Henry Wilde ; 
 more dignity, but less rhythmical poldsh than that of Rodman 
 Drake ; more accurate conception than those of Miss Hannah 
 F. Gould, St. Leger L. Carter, or Charles Hubner ; more com- 
 pleteness than the melodramatic touch of Henry Flash. Yet all 
 these have done something well ; and among them all General 
 Pike's poem will endure with the most lasting. 
 
 General Pike seems to be, to a great extent, devoid of literary 
 ambition, and falls with reluctance into the life editorial, which 
 is too glaring and noisy for his quiet tastes and love of repose. 
 
 His chirograph is light, small, and very neat-looking ; not very 
 legible nor strong, but rapid, and yet short and round. It is an 
 esthetical hand, indicating love of retirement and enjoyment of 
 nature, especially in her solitudes ; sensitiveness, culture, and a 
 certain homeless self-reliance, that is in a strange way Poesque 
 and bitter. 
 
 CHARLES A. PILSBURY. 
 
 Among the sprightliest of our young writers is Mr. PiLSBURy 
 of New Orleans. He is versatile, witty, and quick. Of delicate 
 features, brown curly hair, and gentle bearing, he impresses a 
 stranger as rather feminine; but the tone of his graver leaders in 
 the morning paper, and his exhaustive statisticaJessays on politi- 
 cal economy in DeBoiifs Review, are masculine enough. He 
 is devoted <to music; passionately fond of the opera; delights in 
 
420 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SO If TIT. 
 
 theatricals; has correct taste in the fine arts; sketches from 
 nature ; paints in oil and water colours ; is ever ready with a 
 bon mot; has a special partiality for the sea and nautical affairs 
 generally ; pets flowers, keeps them about him, and wears them ; 
 scorns not the rosy wine ; appreciates "purple and fine linen" ; 
 wears fine jewelry ; adores woman ; and in general bestows a 
 high and properly appreciative estimate upon the " good things 
 of this life." He is a great favourite with both women of esprit 
 and men of wit ; and enjoys the Bohemian spirit of editorial life. 
 
 Mr. Pilsbury was born in 1839, ^'^'^ ^^^ ^^^ ^ roaming life 
 from British America to Mexico. He spent two years in Texas, 
 mostly in the Indian country. While in that region he wrote 
 regularly for the New-Orleans press — also for other journals 
 North and South — sketches, poetry, and correspondence from 
 the wild West. In 1859, he crossed the plains into Utah, and 
 spent some time with the army there. In 1859 or i860 he 
 became editor of the Halifax (Nova Scotia) Morning Journal, 
 and continued in that position until the surrender of Lee, in 
 1865. The Morning Journal vf as the first newspaper in British 
 America to espouse the Southern cause, and continued to advo- 
 cate it unto the bitter end. It was popularly known as the 
 "rebel" organ. Mr.. Pilsbury at the same time contributed 
 editorials on American affairs to The Halifax Reporter, and was 
 a contributor to various colonial journals, and also corres- 
 pondent of the London /«^«*, the well-known Confederate 
 organ in England. In 1865 he returned to New Orleans; and 
 to-day writes contributorial leaders for the Neiw-Orleans Times, 
 and also had therein, recently, a series of sketches, called 
 Pepita and I, which have been highly praised. He writes statis- 
 tical and politico-economical papers for De Boii/s Commercial 
 Review. He is engaged upon a novel, which prorriises to deter- 
 mine a position for him in literature proper ; and those who know 
 him best feel most confidence in that position's being a high 
 one. 
 
 A little- poem — At the Ball — is a peculiar mixture of tlie 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 4^1 
 
 naive, the common-place, and ^e piguante; and I give it as a 
 specimen of his verse style : — 
 
 In the garden I plucked them ; 
 Twin rosebuds on a single stem ; 
 One for you and one for me — 
 How fresh and fair their petals be ! 
 
 Winter winds had nipped and chilled them. 
 Cruel frosts had well nigh killed them, 
 But, despite the wintry weather. 
 Fair twin buds, they bloomed together. 
 
 When at the ball to-night we meet. 
 These shall be our emblems sweet — 
 All unknown to stranger eyes — 
 Of true love that never dies. 
 
 Yours lies nestled in your breast — 
 Happy flower to be so blest 1 
 Mine, in button-hole I'll twine 
 Above this captive, heart of mine. 
 
 Now and then, as you are dancing. 
 O'er your shoulder you'll be glancing 
 Toward, the flower which cruel fate 
 Thus has severed from its mate. 
 
 At each glance from out your eyes. 
 Cupid's winged arrow flies. 
 Unseen, unthonght of, save by one. 
 Yet it's mission's surely done. 
 
 As each keenlypointed dart 
 Makes a target of my heart. 
 Out the crimson bl6od'comes gushing, 
 .^nd thrpugh all my veins is rushing. 
 
 While my neighbor, grey and prosy, 
 Wonders why I've grown so rosy. 
 He may wonder ; little chance is 
 He will intercept our glcnces. 
 36 
 
422 LIVING WRITERS OF TOE SOUTH. 
 
 But I never dance, you know. 
 So wWle throiigll the swift galop. 
 Polka, quadrille, or the lancers, 
 A peerless queen among the dancers. 
 
 Lightest, brigjitest, sweetest, best. 
 With my rose upon yovur breast. 
 Swift you glide with winning grace, 
 I look ever for your face. 
 
 One might take me for a statue 
 As I stand here looldng at you; 
 Looking doubtless somewhat lonely. 
 As my thoughts are for you only. 
 
 Deaf arid dumb to all around ine — 
 By some potent spell you've bound me — 
 Steeled against the charms of all, 
 I stand here against the wall. 
 
 Doubtless people look, and wonder 
 " Who's that stupid fellow yondet. 
 Who seldom tdks and never dances — 
 Ever stealing furtive glances. 
 
 As if looking, hoping, longing. 
 For some one to him belong^g." 
 But these flowers they ne'er discover. 
 Worn by mistress and by lover. 
 
 When you rest your weary feet 
 
 I will come to you, my sweet, 
 
 Touch your hand, and say " Good-moming," 
 
 For the day is nearly dawning. 
 
 WILLIAM S. PLUMER, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Dr. Plumer is at present .ffofes^pr of Di4^ctic and Polemic 
 Theology in the Presbyterian Theolpgical Seminary at Columbia, 
 South Carolina. He is a native, I believe, of western Penn- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 4.23 
 
 sylvania ; was educated at Washington College, Lexington, 
 Virginia ; has been pastor in, Richmond, Petersburg, and Balti- 
 more ; was at one time, a Professor in Alleghany Seminary, in 
 western Pennsylvania; was, during his ministry in .Richmond, 
 an editor also ; married a lady of South Carolina ; and moved 
 to Columbia directly from. PottsvUle, Pennsylvania, whither he 
 had been called to ministerial duties from Baltimore, where he 
 had fallen into disfavour, in consequence of his moderate or 
 conservative views in politics — rather, as I infer, because he 
 declined to mix religion arid politics in his ministry of the gospel. 
 His published works are the following: — 
 
 1. TAe Grace of Chfiffi. . This volume appeared in 1849, 
 issued by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, 
 by which were also issued the four following : — 
 
 2. The Law of God. 1863. 
 
 3. Saint and Sinner. 
 
 4. Wordi of Truth and Love. 1867. 
 
 5. The Ribbon Room. 
 
 6. Short Sermons for Little Children. Published by the S. S. 
 Union. 
 
 7. The Church and her Enemies. Issued by the Baptist Pub- 
 lication Society, Philadelphia, as were also the two following: — 
 
 8. Rome Against the JBibl^. 
 
 9. The Bible Against Rome. 
 
 10. Thoughts Worth Remembering. Published by the Metlio- 
 dist Book Concern, New York. 
 
 11. The Bible True. Published (also Uie two following) by 
 the New- York Tract Society* 
 
 12. Vital Godliness. 18641 
 
 x^. The Rock of our Salvation. i866. 
 
 x^ Jehofa^-jireh. 1865. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadel- 
 phia. 
 
 le,. Studies in the Book of Psalnts. Same publishers. 1866. 
 
 -Dr. Plumer (the word is pronounced Plummer) is noted for 
 the practical character of his mind, and for the untiring industry 
 
424 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 witli which he pursues his vofcation. He is spoken of by the 
 critics as being rather positive than polemic in the manner of 
 presenting his thoughts to the reader. He is an adoptive son 
 of the South; Has a family. 
 
 MISS ELIZA JANE POITEVENT. 
 
 Under tlie mm de plume of Pearl Rivers, Miss Poitevent 
 has won a place of great favour in the hearts of our Crescent- 
 City and Gulf-State readers. She is quite young and charming 
 as a poet should be ; and is a native of Mississippi, the place of 
 her nativity being near Pearl River, at Habolochitto, some 
 thirty miles inland from Bay St. Louis. 
 
 A little over three years ago she made her appearance in 
 pnnt as a contributor to The South, a literary sheet then con- 
 ducted, in New Orleans, by John W. Overall, Esquire. Since 
 that time, she has been a constant contributor to the N. O. 
 Sunday Times, The Picayune, and, more recently, to the New- 
 York Home Journal. An editor of the Crescent City charac- 
 terizes her style as "simple, delicate, and truthful"; and a 
 reverend editorial critic of Nashville, himself a poet, thus speaks 
 of her : — 
 
 " Her Muse inspires the deepest pathos, the most earnest S3Tn- 
 pathy of sorrow or of joy ; the softest, gentlest, sweetest breath- 
 ings of love ; and her song is as easy, and mellow, and natural 
 as the joy-notes of the lark soaring toward the empyrean ; or the 
 mock-bird of her own sunny clime, as in exultant gyrations, or 
 serial flights he trills and carols his outgushing joys, or anon in 
 the turtle's cooing notes, more plaintive, to be sure, but no less 
 sweet, simple, natural." 
 
 One of Miss Poitevenf s characteristic pieces is Waiting -^2, 
 lyric very delicate, dreamy, and ideal — which quote entire : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 4^5 
 
 Down the golden shores of Siinset, ^ 
 
 On the silver Twilight strand, 
 For my dark-eyed poet-lover 
 
 I in dreamy waiting stand. 
 
 O'er the waters deep that part us. 
 
 In the fairy barque of Thought, 
 Winged lyith silken sails from Dreamland, 
 
 By the hand of Fancy vreought, 
 
 fle is floating, floating softly, 
 
 Floating straight to love and me. 
 Hark ! the mellow, mellow music 
 
 Of his voice apon the sea. 
 
 Reason guides the fairy shallop. 
 
 And his heart-throbs dip it low ; 
 With a dreamy, dreamy motion. 
 
 Rock it gently to and fro. 
 
 He has passed the shoals of Pleasure, 
 
 Though the sirens singing there 
 Soi^ht to bind him to their bosoms 
 
 With their golden, golden hair. 
 
 And he brings a precious freights^e. 
 
 Sparkling gems of Poesie, 
 Gatheied from the, Isles of Beauty, 
 
 And this wealth. is all for me ! 
 
 All for me ! his chaste, his chosen. 
 
 Standing by the Sunset -land. 
 Like the spirit of a Lily 
 
 On the silver Twilight strand ! 
 
 As unlike Waiting as it is possible for Miss Poitevent to 
 
 ■HTite or even conceive — and yet it is characteristic of her ideal 
 
 nature — is Onlj^ a Heart, which, I give as a counter-piece to the 
 
 gentler melodies just quoted : — 
 
 L 
 Only a heart, a woman's heart ; ' 
 
 Step on it ! crush it ! so ! 
 
 Bravely done, like a man, and true. 
 
 Turn on your heel and go. 
 
 36* 
 
426 LiyjNG WMITERS OF. THE SOUTJg. 
 
 Only a heart 1 Do not fear, my losdj- 
 
 Nobody on earth is near 
 To come to the cry of the woimded thii^, t 
 
 And God is too far to hear ! 
 
 Only a hsart 1 What matters it, pray. 
 
 My lord of the iron heel ? 
 Crush it again, with a pitiless smile : , 
 
 'Tis weakness, my lord, to y>^/. ' '■^' 
 
 Nay, stoop not to touch it, or soothe it, my lord. 
 With the balm of a gentle woiid. . .■ . - j 
 
 So — so — coldly turn fron^ the crushed bleeding thing ; 
 It is only a heart, my lord. 
 
 Only a heart ! What harm is done ? 
 
 Let it blfeed iii the dust and moan. 
 Or stifle its anguish as best it may. 
 
 Or stiffen, my lord, into stone. 
 
 Only a heart ! It was fresh, and young. 
 
 And tender^ aud'warm, I know. 
 As pure as the spirit of chastity. 
 
 My lord ; and it lOved yori so. 
 
 But nothing is lost. Let it die, my lord. ' 
 
 Let its death be^uiet or slow. 
 Such hearts are plenty as summer leaves ; 
 
 We find them wheypver. we go. 
 
 Only a heart ! and for loving you so ! 
 
 The cup that you gave let it drain 
 To the bitterest dregs. Let it quiver and bleed. 
 
 Let it be^t a full rhythm of pain. 
 
 Nay ! Stay not to make it a grave, my lord; 
 
 But back to your pleasures depart — ' 
 No blood on your hand, no stain on your soul ; 
 
 It was only a weak woman's heart 1 
 
UVINV WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 427 
 
 EDWARD A. POLLARD. 
 
 Mr. Pollard was during the war probably the most widely 
 known journalist in the Coiifederacy ; as the Richmond Exam- 
 iner, of which he was one of the chief editors, was at the head 
 of its class of joTlinalS. He was known as an opjiosition man ; 
 and his paper was fearless, independent, pungent, anti-adminis- 
 tration, and able ; and far eansequent, was eminently popular, 
 although the body of the people perhaps felt that its asperi'tieb 
 were often too severe and its denunciatory criticisms of public 
 affairs and officials sometimes misplaced. 
 
 Mr. Pollard was born on Monday, the 27th of February, 1832, 
 in Nelson County, Virginia. His father, Hon. Richard Pollard, 
 was foT eight years United States Minister to Chili, under the 
 appointment of President Jackson. His mother was a sister of 
 Senator William C. Rives of Virginia. The relationship em- 
 braces the CabellSj a large and influential family in that state. 
 
 Our author was educated at the University of Virginia, where 
 he graduated in some branches in 1849; ^'^^ ^^ William and 
 Mary College, where he studied law under Judge Beverly Tucker, 
 the eminent jurist. He was a great favourite of Judge Tucker, 
 and imbibed from that source, no doubt, the tenor of his politi- 
 cal views. 
 
 The occasion of Mr. Pollard's leaving William and Mary 
 before graduation in law, ifumishes ah incident illustrative of his 
 character. He was an opposition man at that early date. H6 
 led a revolt against a rule of- college discipline which required 
 the students to testify frkiately, in- the Blue Rbom, as to their 
 pranks and disorders. This mode of educing testimony had 
 been long unpopular with the students, especially so with those 
 of sensitive tone and Southern opinions of honour and truth. 
 This movement required his withdrawal from the college, 
 although he was not publicly expelled. Judge Tucker has left 
 upon record the highest testimonials of his appreciation of the 
 
428 ZTVING WRITERS OP 7 HE SOUTH. 
 
 great ability of his ileve, and of his confidence in the promise 
 of a brilliant future that lay beforer him. Mr. Polldrd was at 
 that time eighteen years of age. 
 
 After leaving William and Mary College he finished his law 
 studies with Joseph J. Speed, Esquire, a celebrated lawyer of 
 Baltimore. He emigrated to California, and shared the adven- 
 turous hfe incident to that wild region until 1855, whei; he 
 directed his wanderings southward, spending sometime in north- 
 ern Mexico, and again in Nicaragua ; and at length returned to 
 the States. He next spent two years in Washington City, where 
 he was employed during Buchanan's administration as Clerk of 
 the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives. At 
 the breaking-out of the war he was without political employ- 
 ment, and was studyiijg for the Episcopal ministry, having been 
 admitted a candidate for holy orders by Bishop Meade of Vir- 
 ginia. The only interval that he had during his editorial labours 
 was about eight months, when he was a prisoner in the North, 
 having been captured at sea on his way to England on a liteBasy 
 mission. Since the war he has been devoted exclusively to 
 literary pursuits. 
 
 In the summer of 1868, just at the opening of the presiden- 
 tial campaign, Mr. Pollard commenced tiie publication of a 
 weekly called The Political Pamphlet. The principles of the 
 journal were democratic. It survived only two weeks. 
 
 His works are : — 
 
 1. Black Diamonds. Published •. in New- York, 1859. It 
 consists of sketches of negro slavery, anecdotes, ijlustrative 
 scenes, etc, *ijd went through two .editions. 
 
 2. Southern. History of the }Vdr. Appeared in 1866. It is a 
 large work of two octavo volumes. During the progress of the 
 war there appeared in Richmond successively, from year to year, 
 tlie First Year of the War, ^eco^nd Year of the War, and so 
 on, four volumes. These vpljumes, retouched and extended to 
 the close of the war, make up the above History. 
 
 3. Th( Lost Cause. TJiis is the magnum of us of Mr, Pollard. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 429 
 
 it appeared in New York, 1866; is an octavo of 750 pages, and 
 sold very largely. The jmblishers claim to have half a million 
 readers — a hundred thousand copies sold. The work has been 
 translated into French. 
 
 4. Observations in the North. Ten months in prison and on 
 parole. A duodecimo of about 160 pages. 
 
 5. A number of brochures, among which are The Southern 
 tS^j*, a paper-cover volume of 120 pages; The Rival Adminis- 
 trations ; The Two Nations ; and A Last Appeal to the People 
 of the South, published three or four days before the fall of 
 Richmond. 
 
 6. JLee and His Lieutenants. Appeared in 1867 ; consists of 
 biographies of the distinguished leaders of the Southern armies ; 
 an octavo, of 852 pages, illustrated. 
 
 7. Life of Thomas Jefferson. Was announced for the spring 
 of 1868. The author's design in producing a biography of Jef- 
 ferson at this time and "in connection with the present political 
 condition of the country," is " to make this comnection and to 
 apply die great lessons it contains." * 
 
 8. The Lost Cause Regained. Appeared in 1868. It is a 
 kind of. pendant to The Lost Cause. 
 
 g. Life of Jefferson Davis. This work appeared in 1869. 
 
 FRANCIS PEYRE PORCHER, M.D. 
 
 Dr. PoRCHER is a physician of distinction in Charlseton, 
 South Carolina, and was born'' there about the year 1825. He 
 received his academical education at the ancient Collegiate In- 
 stitute of Mount Zion, at Winnsboro ■ in his native state. He 
 took his literary degree at the South Carohna College at Co- 
 lumbia in 1844. His degree in medicine he received from the 
 Medical College at Charleston a few years later. 
 
 He has devoted himself with great assiduity and marked sue- 
 
430 ZIV7NG WRITERS OF THE SOUTff. 
 
 cess to botany as a branch -of physics immediately adjanct to 
 his profession. His writings bear almost exclusively upon that 
 subject. ' ... 
 
 Dr. Porcher is of Huguenotic ancestry, and of a family among 
 the first in Charleston. : i - 
 
 His published works are : - — 
 
 r. A Sketch of the Medical Botany of South Carolina.' This 
 is an octavo of 250 pages, published in Philadelphia in 1849. 
 It is a report made to the American Medical Association at its 
 isessions held in Baltimore and Boston; Dr. Porcher being at 
 that time corresponding member of the Medical and Surgical 
 and Obstetric Societies, of the Lyceum of Natural History of 
 New York, and of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 
 delphia. The work forms part — in volume second — oi Thi 
 Transactions of the American Medical Assocciation. 
 
 2. The Medical, Poisonous, and Dietetic Prop^ties of the Cry p- 
 togamic Plants of the United States. This is an octavo of 126 
 pages, published in 1854, in The Transactions of the American 
 Medical Association, volume seventh, it being a report made to 
 that association at its sessions held in Richmond and St. Louis. 
 
 3. Illustrations of Disease with the Microscope. This is a 
 prize essay, to which the first prisfe of one hundred dollars, 
 offered by the South Carolina Medical Association, was awarded, 
 in February, i860. 
 
 4. Clinical Investigations, Aided by the Microscope and by 
 Chemical Reagents ; "with microscopial observations of pathologi- 
 cal specimens, medical and surgical, obtained in Charleston, South 
 Carohna." This was published under the auspices of the South 
 Carolina Medical Association, in Charleston, in 1861 ; and is an 
 octavo of 132 pages. Its title-page designates it as "a contribu- 
 tion intended to disclose the minute . history of the diseases 
 prevailing in .that latitude, and tO:assist the future student j with 
 upwards of 500 original drawings frqm nature made at the time 
 of the observations," The epigraph is from Linnaeus, and is 
 aptly significant — Natura maxime miranda in minimis. 
 
LTVTNG WRITERS OF TffE S&tfTff. "45^ 
 
 ■ %. Resources af the Soutkern 'Fields and Forests, Medical, 
 Fcenamicaif. and Agricultural ; being also a Metfital Botany of 
 the Confederate Sta.tes, with practical information on the useful 
 properties of the trees, plants, and shrubs. This is a CohfedSrate 
 book, and was published by order of die Surgfeon-General in 
 1863, and is a stout octavo of over six hundred pages. The 
 autlior has kept^this work under his :handB, and has a second and 
 enlarged edition r$ady for the presSi 
 
 6. A Medico-Botanical Catalogue of the Plants and Ferns of 
 St. Johfis, Berkeley, South Carolina. This is Dr. Porcher's thesis 
 offered for tlie degree of M.D. in 1847 ; and was published by 
 the faculty of the Medical College of South Carolina. 
 . While a lecturer on the Practice- of. Physic and on Materia 
 Medica and Therapeutics in the Charleston Preparatory Schodl, 
 in connection with Dr. D. J. Cain, Dr. Porcher edited The 
 C/iarleston Medical Journal and Review through five volumes, 
 aoid contributed largely to its pages. 
 
 MRS. MARGARET J*. PRESTON. 
 
 Authors arfe often impelled to literary pursuits by some strin- 
 gent necessity; or, wakened from the repose of happiness by 
 some great suffering, find refuge and utterance in letters. This 
 is especially true of women who have laboured in this field. 
 
 Amon'g the exceptions to this 'riile, in our Southern female 
 writers, IS Mrs. Preston, most widely known now as the a-iithor of 
 Beechenh'ook, a poem. To her the Muse has not been a medi- 
 cina niali, and hardly a curce reqiifis, as Ovid's was ; nor has she 
 had Poverty to string her lyre, as the chief of" the' Rornari lyrists 
 said of his own. That which she has written has been tlie pas- 
 time and not the- serious business of her life. Her utterances 
 have all been spontaneous, and always thrown into literary form 
 with great rapidity and case.. 
 
 Mrs. Preston, n&e Junkin, is a daughter of the Rev. Dr. 
 
433 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Junkin, once President of Washington College at Lexington, 
 Virginia, She is the wife of Colonel J. T. L. Preston, Professor 
 in the Virginia Military Institute, himself a writer of great 
 culture, taste, and vigour. 
 
 Mrs. Preston is too happily situated in life to have much 
 biography — a happy wife; a proud mother; the mistress of a 
 home of affluence and taste ; gifted as a poet; a lady of culture, 
 of position, and of illustrious ancestry, — her boat is gliding over 
 smooth waters. She has, notwithstanding these pleasant sur- 
 roundings, publi^ed two volumes, both of merit. They are 
 these : — 
 
 1. Silverwood : a Book of Memories, was published by Derby 
 & Jackson, New York, in 1856. It is not a sensational novel in 
 any sense of that word, and did not succeed in any noisy way, 
 but had a fair success. Its story is of course, then, simple ; but 
 it is full of pathos, affection, and true life ; often too sad to please 
 the thoughtless; light in its easy and unstrained natufalnessj 
 teaching the lesson of resignation ; sad, but hopeful ; and, in fine, 
 true to the epigraph selected by the author — "From the sessions 
 of sweet, silent thought, I summon up remembrance." The 
 life described is Southern, and the manner of the writer — I do 
 not mean the style — is also unmistakably Southern. 
 
 2. Beechenbrook: a Rhyme of the War, is a narrative poem of 
 sixty-five duodecimo pages, written during the war, in the midst, 
 as it were, of the scenes described. Beechenbrook is a Southern 
 homestead. The heroine is the mistress of that home. The 
 hero is a Confederate officer who fights and dies in that cause ; 
 and the theme of the poem is that wife's experiences in equipping 
 her husband for the field, in enduring the agony of home-suspense, 
 in doing the all that our women did in those days, and in bowing 
 as only woman can beneath the final stroke. The poem is full of 
 action too; we have — to quote tiie language of the poem 
 itself, — 
 
 The clangour 6f muskets, the ■fladiini; of sted, 
 The clatter of spurs on the stout -booted heel. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 433 
 
 The wavjbg of banners, the resonant tranp 
 
 Of majfching battalions, — the fiery stamp 
 
 Of steeds in their war-harness, newly decked out, 
 
 The blast of the bu^e, the hurry, the shout. 
 
 The terrible energy, eager and wild. 
 
 That lights tip the face of man, woman, and child; 
 
 That bums on all lips, that arouses all powers. , . 
 
 There is much tension of soul in the book, and the climax 
 arrangement is well managed : — 
 
 When we think we have touched the far limit at last, 
 One tliroe,' and the point of endurance is passed ; 
 When we shivering hang on the verge of despair. 
 There still is capacity left us to bear. 
 
 And this capacity is fiilly and freely, tried tliroughout Beechen- 
 brook. 
 
 The general movement of the verse is anapaestic, though it is 
 relieved from time to time with lyrics in other measures. I here 
 present one of these lyric interludes — the opening of Chapter 
 ten: — 
 
 Break, my heart, and ease this pain ; 
 Cease to throb, thou tortured brain; 
 Let me die, since he is slain — 
 Slain in battle ! 
 
 Blessed brow^ that loved to rest. 
 Its dear whiteness on my breast ; 
 Gory was the grass it prest — 
 Slain in battle ! 
 
 Oh, that still and stately form ! 
 Never more will it be warm ; 
 Chilled beneath that iron storm — 
 Slain in battle ! 
 
 Not a pillow for his Ijead ; 
 Not a hand to smooth his bed; 
 Not one tender parting said — 
 Slain in battle ! . 
 37 
 
434 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Straightway from that bloody sod. 
 Where the trampling horsemen trod. 
 Lifted to the arms of God, — 
 Slain in battle t 
 
 Not my love to come between. 
 With its interposing screen ; 
 Naught of earth to intervene — 
 Slain in battle !^ 
 
 Snatched the purple billows o'er. 
 Through the fiendish rage and roar. 
 To the far and peaceful shore — 
 Slain in battle 1 
 
 Nunc demitte, thus I pray; 
 What else left for me to say, 
 Since my life is reft away? 
 Slain in battle ! 
 
 Let me die, O God ! the dart 
 Drinks the life-blood of my heart ; 
 Hope, and joy, and peace, depart ! — 
 Slain in battle I 
 
 This sounds like the utterance of genuine feeling — sounds as 
 if laden with terrible experience,; and did we not know that the 
 poet suffered no such bereavement, we might readily conclude 
 that it records a heart-known sorr6w. I make this personal 
 reference because it" conveys an idea of the poetic art displayed 
 in the production of Beechenbrook. Norie but a genuine artist 
 can thus both create and utter such profound feeling. 
 
 A contemporary speaking of tliis poem characterises it as "a 
 remarkable production, pervaded by an intense love of nature, 
 and deep and touching pathos— one of those books, which, 
 being written from, go to the heart of every reader." And the 
 characterization is eminently just. 
 
 Regulus is also a poem of power. The reference is patent 
 I quote entire ! — 
 
LiVmTG WmFmS'OF^ TS£ SOVTW. M35 
 
 Have ye no mercy? Piinie rage ''■ ■• ■, . 
 Boasted small skill in torttire when 
 < The sternest patriot of; his a^e^-^ ' ' 
 And Romans zSi Vere' patriots then-^ 
 Was'doomed, with his imwihldng eyes, ' 
 To staitd: beneath the fiery skies, 
 Until the sun-shafts pierced his braiiij 
 And Ke grew blind with poignant pain, 
 Whilfe Carthage jeered arid taiirited. Yet, 
 Whei day's slow-moving orb had set, 
 And pitying Nature — Tcind to aH^— 
 In dewy darkness bathefl her hand. 
 And laid.it on each lidless ball, 
 
 So 'crazed with gusts of scorching sand,. — 
 , They yielded, — nor forbade thfi grace 
 By flaihuig torches in his face. 
 
 Ye.flksh the torches. iKevernight . •, 
 Brings the blank dark to that wo^ «ye : 
 
 In pitiless, perpetual light, 
 
 0«r tortiicpd Regulus jnu^f. lie I ■•!- 
 
 Yet tropic suns seemed tender ; they 
 
 Eyed jdpt with purpose to. betray ; 
 
 No human vengeance, like a spear j .j- , 
 
 Whetted to sharpness, keen and clear, 
 
 By settled hatred, prickeiits way ' - • ' : 
 
 liigbt through the bloodshot iris I i Nay, 
 
 Ye have refingd the torment. Qlfire; .-';; 
 A-Iittle longer, through the bars. 
 
 At the bayed lion in his lair, — 
 . AlV^(^(^'s dear' hand, from out the stars, 
 
 T6^ shame inhuman man, may cast 
 
 /(r^^i^^pw o'er, those Uds at last. 
 
 And end their achi!Dg, with the Mest 1 T 
 
 Signet and seal of perfect rest ! 
 
 This is remarkal^ycyigorous, suggestive, and free from affec- 
 tations. ■!-"'• 
 As a general lyrici womanly in its style, and womanly in its 
 
■4^ LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 theme, I present Attainment, which its author labels a carmen 
 natale, and give it entire : — 
 
 Rare-ripe, ivith rich, concentrate sweetness. 
 
 All girlish aridities subdued. 
 You stand to-day in the completeness 
 
 Of your consummate womanhood. 
 
 The Stem supports no pen^e flower. 
 
 No merely graceful petalled shoot ; 
 But all, through fostering sun and shower. 
 
 Develops into perfect fruit. 
 
 And this is what we looked for : can it 
 
 Fail of such ends, in Nature's law. 
 Who marvels at the full pomegranate, 
 
 That watched the blossom free from flaw 1 
 
 Yet 'tis not only summer weather 
 
 That purples o'er the ladened vine; 
 Fierce heats, slant rains combine together. 
 
 To fill the grapes with golden wine. 
 
 We heed too carelessly, the uses 
 
 Of the rude bufiets of the wind ; 
 Or how they stir the quickened juices 
 
 Or crimson-tint the fruity rind. 
 
 E'en while we mark the mellowed graces, 
 
 The ripened heart, the mind mature. 
 We disallow the trials' traces 
 
 That wrought results so high and pure. 
 
 . We learn through suffering: 'tis the story 
 
 World-old and weary; and we know. 
 Though we renounce the wisdom hoary. 
 That all our tests will prove it so. 
 
 You've conned the lesson : every feature 
 
 Is instinct vrith the dear-bought lore: 
 You comprehend how far the creature 
 
 Can meet the creature's need; and more 
 
LIVING WRITMRS OF THE SOUTH. 437 
 
 Thaq this ; you've gauged and weighed the human. 
 
 With just, deliberate, firm control. 
 And found the perfect poise of woman. 
 
 The pivot-balance of her souL, 
 
 And thus, sust^ed'and strengthened by it. 
 
 You front the future : bring it balm, 
 Or bring it bitter, — no disquiet 
 
 Shall mar the inviolable calm. 
 
 Let the years come ! They shall but double 
 
 God's benison within your breast : 
 Nor time, nor care, nor change shall trouble 
 
 The haleyon of this central rest. 
 
 Mrs. Preston's translation of the famous Dies Jra, published 
 in 1855, is full of earnest and musical versification. It com- 
 mences : — 
 
 Oh 1 that day — that day of ire I 
 Earth shall be dissolved in fire — 
 Witness seer's and David's lyre. 
 a; / 
 
 The whole translation is well sustained. 
 Of sonnets — where so many fail — Mjs. Preston has written 
 several with fair success. Her characteristic excellence con- 
 sists in a judicious selection of a theme suited to sonnetic ex- 
 pression J and in not attempting to bend 'themes indiscriminately 
 into such form. I give Non Dolet as a fair illustration of her 
 sonnet: — 
 
 When doubt, defeat, and dangO'S sore beset 
 The Roman Arria, — yielding to the tide 
 Of ills that overwhelmed on every side, — 
 With unheroic heart, that could forget - 
 'Twas cowardice to diie, she dared and met 
 The easier fate : and luring, sought to hide. 
 For her beloved's sake — true woman yet ! — > 
 The inward anguish, with a wifely pride. 
 Not so our Southern Arria ! — -in the- face 
 
 3r* 
 
43f8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Of deadlier woes, she dared to live, and wring 
 Hope out of havoc: till the brave control. 
 Pathetic courage, and most tender grace 
 Of her "«ff« dolef nerved her husband's soul. 
 Won him to life, and. dulled e'en failure's sting 1 
 
 Mrs. Preston's cHirograph is eminently illustrative of combined 
 delicacy, clearness, and vigour — self-assertion and a directness 
 of thought, feeling, and action, decidedly /r^«^«fe. 
 
 MRS. ELIZA LOFTON PUGH. 
 
 A novel witli the title of Not a Hero appeared in 1867 of which 
 Mrs. Pugh of Louisiana was announced as the author. It was 
 the initial number of a series of "select novels by Southern 
 authors" gotten up in cheap style. 
 
 THOMAS N. RALSTON, D.D. 
 
 Among the tlieological works of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, The JSkmintS! of Divinity -^s. good-sized octavo — by Pr. 
 Ralston, ranks very high, if not the highest in its line. The same 
 writer also edited an edition of Bishop Bascom'p Posthumous 
 Works. 
 
 HENRY S. RANDALL. 
 
 The only work I find by this author is A Life of Thomas fef- 
 ferson in three octavo volumes, 'which appeared in 1858. It is 
 a work of great labour, and is the Life of Jefferson for all Southern 
 men. A work entitled Sheep Husbandry; with an account of the 
 different breeds and general directions in regard to management, 
 appeared in 1859, from a New-York house, under the name of 
 this author. 
 
Livmc WRITERS OF THE. SOUTH. 439 
 
 JAMES RYDER RANDALL. 
 
 The timeliest war-song of the South during the War of Seces- 
 sion was Maryland. Not the Greek Tyrtseus, nor the German 
 Korner, nor the Italian Berchet, nor the Irish Mangan ever 
 dashed off as opportune a lay; and only Rouget de I'lsle has 
 been more fortunate in that regard. 
 
 Maryland bears date of April, 1861. The world does not 
 need to be told why at that date this poem found an echo in the 
 hearts of seven millions of people. 
 
 The name of the author of Maryland, My Maryland, stands 
 at tlie head of this paper. 
 
 The song was published with music in Baltimore; the air 
 being tha,t of an old German Burschen-lied, commencing, — 
 
 O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaiun, 
 Wie griin sind deine Blatter ! — 
 
 The song was sung in every drawing-room in the South. 
 
 The metre and tone of this song is in some degree like those 
 of TTie Karamanian Exile, one of James Clarance Mangan's 
 characteristic poems "(from the Ottoman)," as he putsit forth, 
 commencing, — 
 
 I See thee ever in my dreams, Karaman I 
 
 The song was opportune. Such words as these were stirring 
 in those days : — 
 
 Hark to a wandering son's appeal, 
 
 Maryland ! 
 My mother State ! to thee I kneel, 
 
 Maryland ! 
 For life and death, for woe and weal. 
 Thy peerless chivalry reveal, 
 And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 
 
 Maryland ! My Maryland 1 
 
44P LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 And these words bum and blaze with the passion of aroused 
 and indignant genius i— 
 
 Better the fire upon thee roll, 
 Better thp blade, the shot, the bowl. 
 Than crucifixion of the soul, 
 
 Maryland ! My Maryland ! 
 
 Maryland lived a year or two in the heart of a struggling and 
 hoping people; but passed out from those hearts, when they 
 ceased to feel the hope that found utterance in the song. 
 
 Then it was parodied and burlesqued, and became the scoff 
 and rally of a camp rabble. Yet all that while it thrilled many 
 a heart at home, where the ribaldry of camp could never come ; 
 and it thrills many a heart in those homes to-day. 
 
 Twin sister of song with Maryland is Theris Life in the. Old 
 Land Yet. Tliis latter appeared, I believe, before a poem with 
 the same name, having the same refrain and almost the same 
 theme, by Frank Key Howard. Both poems have high merit, 
 and one has the demerit of being a little too much like tlie 
 other. 
 
 Like these, but more definitely warlike, is The Battle-cry of the 
 South, than which no more stirring voice ever rose from the 
 heart of Southern poet It stands with Timrod's Cry to Arms 
 and Hayne's Black Flag, and compares to advantage with 
 either ; and recalls the impulsive fire of Arndt, whose father- 
 land-lays filled the hearts of his people. 
 
 Of war tone and colouring are also Fort Pillow — an indignant 
 and defiant outburst of outraged feeling, which some consider . 
 the author's best poem — and The Lone Sentry, 
 
 One of the best of the war-songs of the South is John Pelham 
 — best in its simple pathos, its catholic interest, its classic grace, 
 and its happiness of allusion. Its pure and earnest humanity has 
 touched a million hearts oyer which passed unnoted the blaring 
 clarion-notes of many a blood-and-thun(der. war-song, tliat we are 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 441 
 
 to find treasured in the collections. I give this' little poem 
 entire: — 
 
 Just as the spring came laughing through the strife. 
 
 With all its gorgeous cheer ; 
 In the glad April of historic life — 
 Fell the great cannoneer. 
 
 , The wondrous lulling, of a hero'si breath 
 His bleeding country weeps; 
 Hushed, ill the alabas(ei arms of death. 
 Our young Marcellus sleeps. 
 
 Grander and nobler than the child of Rome,. 
 
 Curbing his chariot steed. 
 The knightly scion of a Southern home 
 
 Dazzled the land with deeds. 
 
 Gentlest and bravest in the battle's bnmt — 
 
 The champion of the truth — 
 He bore his banner to the very front 
 
 Of our immortal youth. 
 
 A clang of sabres 'mid Virginia's snow. 
 
 The fiery pang of shells, — 
 And there's a wail of immemorial woe 
 
 In Alabama dells. 
 
 The pennon droops that led the sacred band 
 
 Along the crimson field ; 
 The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand, 
 ' Over the q)otless shield ! 
 
 We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face, 
 
 While, round the lips and eyes. 
 Coached in their marble slumber, flashed the grace 
 
 Of a divine surprise. 
 
 O mother of a blessed soid on high. 
 
 Thy tears may soon be shed 1 
 Think of thy boy with princes of the sky. 
 
 Among the Southern dead ! 
 
442 .LIVING WRITKRS OF TffM SOUTH. 
 
 How must he smile on this dull wojrld beaeath. 
 
 Fevered with swift renown — 
 He, with the martyr's amaranthine wreath. 
 
 Twining the victor's crown. 
 
 The Cobra Capello is in quite a different vein : — 
 
 Beautiful ! yes, for her basilisk eyes 
 
 Gleam out when the features are luscious and mellow. 
 Beautiful! yes, butadown the disguise 
 
 I detect just a tinge of the Cobra Capello. 
 
 And I think Mother Eve looked exactly like this 
 When' she played such a prank on uxorious Adam ; 
 
 I've a chronic dislike to a serpentine kiss. 
 And never eat apples in any style, madam. 
 
 Beautiful ! yes, as she paddles her fan 
 
 'Mid the broidered lagoons of her robe of white muslin; 
 And the tight little boot taps a quick rataplan. 
 
 In a way most piratical, not to say puzzling. 
 
 She prates to. Tom Noddy, the handsome young goose. 
 Of Don Trombonnetti, divine on the flute; 
 
 And then, with a smile that's as arch as — the deuce. 
 Quotes pert panegyrics on spmebpdy's foot ! 
 
 She'll sing you a hymn or tell you a fib 
 (Just one of those cynical, feathery trifles). 
 
 And then, with a smirk that I think rather glib. 
 Sigh after some monster that left with the Rifles. 
 
 She vOws I'm a miracle walking with men — 
 
 (Ugh ! I swallow it all with a groan and a cough) 
 
 For I know that most women are comical, when 
 Their night-caps are on and the visitors ofl'! ' 
 
 Aye ! rattle ahead and prattle away, 
 But, in sepulcherpd thought, I broc 
 Ve patted, alas ! about nine months 
 And we never must meet again — somehow or other. 
 
 But, in sepulcherpd thought, I brood over anothej'; 
 We patted, alas ! about nine months to-day, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF TUB SOUTH. 443 
 
 They tell me, poor bird, it is painM to see 
 
 How you've changed, since we rode in the hot summer weather — 
 And oh, if I felt you were pining for me, 
 
 I'd hew me a path that would bring us together t 
 
 In your solitude still do you sing the old songs 1 
 
 O, the "Long weary day !" shall it cease for us never? 
 
 But here, in the riick of the sumptuous throngs, 
 Your name in my lone heart b sacred forever ! 
 
 Ah me ! I am chill, for 'tis fearful to sit 
 
 By the Cobra, when languished witk tenderer matters — 
 
 Ha ! I see that my secret is guessed — every bit — 
 For she's nibbling her lip, and' the &n is — in tatters. 
 
 Beautiful ! yes, but I shall not succumb, 
 
 Though wifeless, from Beersheb^ to Dan ; 
 Heigho ! if my heart were but uijder her thumb. 
 
 She'd crumple it too, like the, innocent fan ( 
 
 ITie Cameo Bracelet — produced before the fall of New Or- 
 leans, where he was, then residiiig. — is thoi^ght by many to be his 
 best general poem. Our readers may judge : — 
 
 Eva sits on the ottoman there. 
 
 Sits, on a Psyche carved in stone. 
 With just suQh a ^ac^ apd jiist such an air 
 
 As Esther upon her throne. 
 
 She's sifting lint for the brave who blefl. 
 
 And I watch her fingers float and flow 
 Over the liitSti, as thread by thread, 
 
 It flakes to her lap like snow. 
 
 A bracelet clinks on her delicate wrist, , 
 
 Wrought as Cellini's were at Rome, 
 Out of' the tears of the amethyst 
 
 And the wan Vesuvian foattt. 
 
 And full on the bauUe-crest alway, 
 , A cameo image, keen and fine, 
 Gleams thy impetuous knife, Corday, 
 And the lava'locks are thine. 
 
444 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I thought of the wax-wolves on pur trail, 
 
 Thejr gaimt fangs sluiced with gouts of blood. 
 
 Till the Past, in a dead, mesmeric veil. 
 Drooped with it^ waaxA flood ; 
 
 Till the surly blaze through the iron bars 
 Shot to the hearth with a pang and cry. 
 
 While a lank howl plunged from the Champ de Mars 
 To the Column of July ; 
 
 Till Corday sprang from the gem, I swear, 
 And the dove-eyed damsel! knew had flown; 
 
 For Eva was not on the ottoman there 
 By Psyche carved in stone. 
 
 She grew like a Pythoness, flushed with fate, 
 
 'Mid the incantation in her gaze, 
 A lip of scorn, an arm of hate, 
 
 A dirge of the Marseillaise ! 
 
 Eva, the vision was not wild 
 
 When wreaked on the tyrants of the land — 
 
 For you were transfigured to Nemesis, child, 
 With the dagger in your hand ! 
 
 Stone Apples is an allegory of startling vividness, and of a 
 brilliant antithesis that reminds one of Owen Meredith. A 
 Sunday Revery is as quiet as an idyl and yet rich in melody and 
 fancies charming as this : — 
 
 The pulse of Nature throbs anew. 
 
 Impassioned of the sun ; 
 The violet, with eyes of blue. 
 
 As modest as a nun. 
 
 This is dainty, notwithstanding, the comparison of the violet to 
 the nun has — by Timrod, Theo. Hill and possibly others, to say 
 nothing of Hood — been made before. The poet speaks from 
 his exile — away from My Maryland again ' — and this reference 
 is to the "grand cathedral notes" that his boyhood had heard, 
 "from out the minster eaves" of his home church : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 44S 
 
 Vibrating to each sturdy tone, 
 
 My soul remembers well 
 The mild Madonna's statue-stone 
 
 Within its ivory cell ; 
 
 The ritual read, the chaunting done. 
 
 The belfry music rolled, 
 And all my faith, like Whittington, 
 
 Was in the tales it told. 
 
 And oh, I feel as men must feel 
 
 Who have not wept for years ! 
 Upon my cheek behold the seal 
 
 Of consecrated tears. 
 
 A mighty Sabbath calm is mine 
 
 That baffles human lore, 
 A resurrection of Lang Syne, 
 
 A guiltless child once more ! 
 
 And mother's school-boy with his mimes. 
 
 This beamy Sunday mom, 
 Forgets the grim tumultuous times 
 
 That hardened him in scorn. 
 
 I remember nothing more touching in this direction — the 
 mingling of memories of childhood, of mother and of innocence, 
 with the peaceful scenes of manhood's folly-stained records of to- 
 day ; the flying back to childhood and its sweet innocence upon 
 the wings of a dreamy memory — I remember nothing more 
 touching than this since the Better Moments of Willis, who 
 sang : — 
 
 I can forget^ her melting prayer 
 
 While leaping pulses madly fly. 
 But in the still, unbroken air. 
 
 Her gentle tones come stealing by — 
 And years, and sin, and folly flee. 
 And leave me at my mother's knee ; 
 38 • 
 
446 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTB. 
 
 and again: — 
 
 I.- ' . 
 Have felt.my m^tli^s spirit rush 
 
 Upon me as in byipast years, 
 And, yielding to the blessed gush 
 
 Of my ungovernable tears. 
 Have risen up — the gay, the wild — 
 Subdued and huinble as a child. 
 
 I beg leave to present one more little lyric iti a different vein, 
 and illustrative of another phase of Mr. Randall's mind. It is 
 Magdalen — brimful of iharity, purity, and poetry : — 
 
 The Hebrevr gul trith flaming bicmv. 
 
 The banner-blush oCshaine, 
 Sinks at the Saviour's sinless feet 
 
 And dares to breathe His name. 
 From the fiill fountains of her eyes 
 
 The lava globes are rolled — 
 They wash Hfs feet, she spurns them off 
 
 With her ringlet scarf of gold. 
 
 The Meek One feels the eloquence 
 
 Of desolating prayer. 
 The burning tears, the suppliant face, 
 
 The penitential hair ; 
 And when, to crown her brimming woe, 
 
 Tlie'pintment box is riven— ^ 
 " Rise, daughter, rise, much hast thou loyed, 
 
 Be all thy sins forgiven ! " 
 
 Dear God ! the prayers of good and pure, 
 
 ' The canticles of light,' 
 
 Enrobe thy throng, with gorgeous skies, 
 
 As incense m thy sight. 
 May the shiv^efjLvas^ of Magdalen; ; 
 
 Soothe m^y an outcast's smart. 
 Teaching what fragrant pleas can spring 
 
 From out a brpkeij( heart. 
 
 I_ « 
 
 Here and there we find a, touph of rare power. This, from 
 
 The Lone Sentry, is a fine picture of Stonewall Jackson : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 447 
 
 A grave and solemn mim was he. 
 
 With deep and sombrp brow; 
 The dreamful eyes seemed hoarding up 
 
 Some miaccomplished vow ; 
 The wistful glance peered o'er the plain, 
 
 Beneath the stairry light. 
 And *dth the murmured name of God 
 
 He watched the camp that night. 
 
 This'pictvire of "revelry by night/' is worthy of Owen Mere- 
 dith:— 
 
 Mid the shimmer of lamps and the redowa's dash, 
 Where the trumpet the trick-tofigued Song salutes ; 
 
 'lK(id the flutter of gauze and the ddamond'sflash-:- 
 'Mid the masquerade of flutes. 
 
 It is vivid, onomatopoetic, and suggestive. 
 One feels the sensuous rapture and whirl of tlie valse ravis- 
 sante in such a verse as this : — 
 
 The vivid, ,voluptuc(us wa^tz is dpne,.- , 
 
 Though Mr. Randall has not piiblished a volume of poems 
 yet, and has written but little comparatively, and though he 
 writes too much by impulse and with too little system, yet there 
 need be no hesitation in ranking him very high among the young 
 poets- of the South. ' 
 
 As a prose-writer— rather, I should say, as a writer of prose — 
 Mr. Randall is forcible and clear ; and this is saying a great 
 deal. Efis editorial pen is apt; bold, and direct. I am not 
 aware that he has contributed anydiing to our prose literature 
 outside of his ephemeral iJeiihiflgs for the daily press. 
 
 James Ryder Randall was bom in Baltimore, Maryland, on 
 New- Year's day of 1839. His lineage is French and English, 
 " with a dash of Irish." He received a good classical education 
 at Georgetown (D. C.) College, a Catholic irfstitution. When 
 quite a young man he went to Louisiana, and for some time 
 edited a newspaper at Point Couple; and from that place re- 
 
44S LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 moved to New Orleans, where he was engaged upon The Sunday 
 Delta, a Hterary weekly. It was at this period that he wrote 
 Eidolon, Maryland, and The Cameo Brdclet, upon the occupation 
 of New Orleans by the Federal forces in 1862. , At a period 
 some months later we find him assigned to duty in Augusta, - 
 Georgia, where he wrote There's Life in the Old Land Yet and 
 The Battle-cry of the Sotfth. Later he was on duty at Wilming- 
 ton, Nortli Carolina. At the close of the war he went, again to 
 Augusta, where he became associate editor and afterwards-^ in 
 1866 — editor in chief of The Constitutionalist, which position he' 
 now holds. Is married. - - 
 
 The fefsotmel of Mr. Randell is striking. He is of medium 
 height — five feet ten, probably — rather slender, with shoulders 
 broad but not erect. His head is large and well formed ; nose 
 Roman, or Syro-Roman, and prominent ; eyes large and dark, 
 hair black, and complexion Italian. The ^ose of his head is ' 
 good ; and the expression of the face, the head, the eye, and the 
 man in general, is that of the poet that he is. 
 
 In disposition he is gentle, quiet, amiable, sensitive ; a bit 
 dreamy; and bears the impress of culture, abated a little by 
 something like indolence. 
 
 He does not write much of late ; cultivates the domestic 
 virtues ; is happy in them ; needs stirring occasions to rouse 
 his Muse to activity. In conversation he is ready ; happy in 
 bandying trite quotations, good upon a pun, and quick and 
 facile at illustrative reference to history and fiction. 
 
 His chirograph is neat, delicate, and fluent; too rapid; is 
 irregular, with a perceptible dash at display, indicating a sensi- 
 tive tempermant with quick powers that want composure and 
 uniformity. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH, 449 
 
 INNIS RANDOLPH. 
 
 As a writer of occasional poems of spirit, pith, and humour, 
 Mr. Randolph of Richmond, Virginia, stands very high. There 
 is in most that he writes a facility in versification and a certain 
 grotesquerie of image that remind one forcibly of the famous 
 Ingoldsby Legends. 
 
 The poem that gave Mr. Randolph the greatest eclat was one 
 for which the opportuneness of the theme did more than the 
 merits of the prodjiction. It is entitled I'm a Qoq^ Old Rebel, 
 and has a happy vein of Inroad humour, but is far inferior to 
 bodi the following poems. 
 
 The former, eafoAeA Chief Justice Marshall on the Stand, was 
 produced upon the occasion of placing on its pedestal the statue 
 of Chief Justice Marshall in front of , the capital in Richmond. 
 
 We are glad to see you, John Marshall, niy boy. 
 
 So fresh from the chisel of Rogers, 
 So take your stand on the monument there, 
 
 Along with the other old codgers. 
 
 With Washington, Jefferson, Mason, "and such," 
 
 Who sinned with a great transgrtssion. 
 In the old-fashioned notions of freedom and right. 
 
 And their hatred of wrong and oppression. \ 
 
 But you've come rather late to your pedestal, Jolih ; 
 
 Things are much changed since you've been here. 
 For the volume you hold is no longer the law. 
 
 And this is no l(5iiger Virginia. 
 
 The old Marshall law you expounded of yore 
 
 Is no longer at all to the purpose ; 
 And the "martial law" of the new brigadier 
 
 Is stronger than habeas corpus. 
 
 So shut up the volume you hold with such care, 
 
 For the days of the law are over ; 
 And it needs all your brass to be holding it there. 
 
 With "Justice" inscribed on the cover. 
 
4SQ LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Could life awaken the limb of bronze 
 
 And blaze in the bnroished eye, 
 What would ye do with a moment of life, 
 
 Ye men of the days gone ly? 
 Would ye, chide us or pity ns, blush or weep, 
 ' Ye men of the days gone by ? 
 
 Would Jefferson tear up the scroll he holds, 
 
 That time has proven a lie? 
 Would Marshall shut up the ,volume of law, 
 
 J^nd lay it down witb.a sigh? 
 
 Would Mason roll up the Bill of Rights 
 
 From a race unworthy to scan 5t, 
 And Hmry dash down the patriot's sword. 
 
 And dang it against the granite? 
 
 And Washington, seated in mas^ strength. 
 
 On his charger that paws the air ; 
 Could he see*his sons in their deep disgrace 
 
 Would he ride so proudly there? 
 
 He would get him down from his big brass lioise^ 
 
 And cover his face with shame, 
 For the land of his birth is ^ow "District One" — 
 
 Virginia was once th^ name. 
 
 The second poem is longer, and is more fairly illustrative of 
 the peculiar vein of Mr. Randolph's Muse. It is entitled A 
 Fish Story ^ a Parable without a Moral. . I give it entire : — 
 
 In the Chesapeake and her tribute streams. 
 Where broadening out to the bay they come, 
 
 And the great fresh waters meet the brine. 
 There swims a fish that is called the drum — 
 
 A fiSh of Wonderful beauty and force, 
 
 That bites like-a steel trap and pulls like a hoirse. 
 
 He is heavy of girth at the dorsal fin. 
 
 But tapering downward keen and thin ; 
 
 Long as a salmon, if not so stout. 
 
 And springy and swift sis tlie mountain trout ; 
 
irviNG. writehsof TffE sourm 431 
 
 For often at ftfght, in a sportive tnodd. 
 He oomes to the brim of th6 moonlit flood. 
 And tosses a glittering cUTve albft, ' i 
 Like the sdver bow of the god ^^ then Soft 
 He plashes delicioudy baek in the spray, - 
 And tremulous ciiiclesg6 'spreading away. 
 Bown by thesaarge of the Yctirk's broad streittti, 
 Aa'old darkey lived, of the xAaetHrigimi, 
 His Ijtugh was londj^ though his 161: was low, 
 He loved,liis oldmaster and hated.his tioe. 
 Small and meagre, was this bid Nedy 
 For maby long winters had frosted his head. 
 
 And bated his force- and vig<^irj 
 But tlicn^h his wool all whit6 had become. 
 And his face wrinkled up like a wash-woman's thumb. 
 And his'back was heat, he was thought by some 
 
 A remarkably hale old ni^eti 
 But he suffered, he said,, with' asteady attacic 
 Of "misery in de, head and pain in de> back," 
 Till his old master gave 'him ^is time to htoself, 
 And the tbil-woni old bondsman was laid on t&e shelf. 
 Though.aU philanthropists dearly can see ' 
 The degradi]^! eifects of slavery, 
 ,':I' can't help thinlcing that this old creature 
 Was agreat advance on his African natnre, : ' 
 And stfaighter of shin and' thinner of lip 
 Than his-gxandsiie that came in the Ysinkee'sUp. 
 Albeit bent with the weary toil ' i 
 
 Of sixty years on a "slave-trodden" soil, 
 Untaught and thriftless and feeblejof mind. 
 His life was gentle,. hi<> heart was kind ; 
 He lived in a liou^he!lpved his wifey 
 He was higher far in his liopes and his life. 
 And a nobler man, with his hoe^in liishand. 
 Than an African prince in his native land. . 
 For peijiaps the most. odious thing upon earth 
 Is an Africav .prince in the land .of his: birth. 
 With his.ne^tive calf aiid hisconvex sliiii,; 
 Triangular-teeth and his pungentskin, '- 
 So bloated of body, so meagre of Hmb, 
 Of pas$ioiis so fierce and of reason so dim. 
 
4SZ ZIVINC WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 So cruel in war, and so torpid in peace. 
 
 So strongly addicted to entrails, and grease, 
 
 So partial to eating by morning light 
 
 The wife that had shared his repose over night ; 
 
 In the blackest of black superstitions downtrod. 
 
 In his hoirible rites to his beastly god. 
 
 With their bloody and loathesome and faideotis mysteiy- 
 
 But that has nothing to do with the fish-story, 
 
 Happy old Edward — his labour was done. 
 
 With nothing to do but sit in the sun. 
 
 And free to follow his darling wish 
 
 Of playing his fiddle and catching his fish. 
 
 He had earned his play-time with labour long. 
 
 And so, lilte the other old Ned of the song, 
 
 "He had laid down the shovel and the hoe. 
 
 And caught up the iiddle and the bow." 
 
 Now I cannot say 
 
 That his style of play 
 Would suit the salens of the present day, - - 
 For the tours deforce of the great Fagauihi ".' 
 Have never found fevour in.old Vir^nny. 
 He never pl»yed a tune that went slow, 
 For he perfectly scorned an adagio. 
 But with eyes half closed, and a time-beatii^; toe, 
 His elbow squared, and his resinous bow 
 Not going up high, nor going down low. 
 But sawing steadily just in the middle — 
 
 He played by the rule 
 
 Of the strictest sdbool 
 Of the old-fashioned, plantation nigger fiddle. 
 And now if that fiddle is heard no more. 
 Nor the com-shiidking laugh, nor the dance of yore^ 
 
 When the rhythmical beat 
 
 Of hilarious feet 
 Struck the happy "hoe-dovra" on the cabin floor; 
 But deserting those cabins in discontent. 
 And thinking it free to be indolent, 
 They leave the fields of the rice and the maize, 
 And huddle in cities to die of disease; 
 If the Christian hymn forgotten should be. 
 And idols be raised by the great Feedee; , 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 4S3 
 
 Or if, misled by villanous men, 
 
 To enact the mad scenes of Jamaica again, 
 
 They fall, as they must, in the deadly assault, 
 
 We only can say that it wasn't our fault. 
 
 For the South did certainly try her best 
 
 To rescue them from the philanthropist, 
 
 In a strife that shall redden the page of history — 
 
 But that has nothing to do with the fish-story. 
 
 To return, old Ned went fishing one day. 
 
 And out on the blue, 
 
 ■In his dug-out canoe. 
 He carried his fiddle along to play. 
 Long he fished with his nicest art. 
 There came not a nibble to gladden his heart ; 
 So he tied his line to his ankle tight, 
 To be ready to haul if a fish should bite. 
 And seized his fiddle. So sweet did he play 
 That the waves leaped up in a laugh of spray. 
 And dimpled and sparlded as if to move 
 To invisible water-Tiymphs- dancing ^bove. 
 Reminding one, as he fiddled there; 
 Of the charming little Venetian air — 
 "Pescator dell 'onda — Fidulin." 
 But slower and slower he drew the bow. 
 And soft grew the music, sweet and low. 
 The lids fell wearily over the eyes. 
 The bow-arm stopped, and the melodies; 
 The last strain melted alojrig the deep. 
 And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep. 
 Just then a huge drum, sent thither by fate,. 
 Caught a passing glance at the tempting bait. 
 And darted upon it with greedy maw. 
 And ran the hook in his upper jaw.' 
 One terrible jerk of wrath and dread 
 From the wounded fish as away he sped. 
 
 With a strength by rage made double. 
 And into the water went old Ned — 
 Not time for any "last words" to be said, 
 For the waves settled placidly over his head. 
 
 And his last remark was a bubble. 
 Let us veil the stru^le beneath the brine. 
 
4S4 J^rw<^. mMTSMS OF THE SOUT&, 
 
 Of the darting fish, wdithetgngUng line. , • 
 The ]»ittle, .flf course, w^ a short one, sioca 
 Oy Ned, not gifted; lyith; gills or fin^ ; 
 
 And, down ii\ the "wavesj was as much out of place 
 As a mermaid would Ijje in a trotting race; 
 And motionless soon ^t the bottot^ he lay, 
 , As. mute as the fiddle that floated away. - ■ 
 They were washpd ashore by the heaving tidcj ; 
 And the fishepmeo; found tljem sidq by sidej , - 
 In a common death and together l^ound 
 In the line that circled them round and round. 
 
 So looped and tangled together 
 That their fate was involved in a dark mystery, 
 K^, to which was the catcher, and which the catchee; 
 For the fish^ was hooked hard and fast' by the g^l. 
 And the dailde was lassoed around the heel, 
 
 An^ each had died by the other ! 
 And the fishermen thought it coul4 never be known, 
 
 After all theic thinking and figurlog. 
 Whether thei^igger a fishing had gone. 
 
 Or the fish had gone out a aiggering. 
 
 In Mr. De Leon's Sauth Sengs appears only .one selection 
 from Mr. Randolph's pen — A General Inmtation- — which is a 
 punning roll of a dozen or more Confederate Generals. It has 
 humour, but no poetry in it. 
 
 AUGUSTUS JU1.IAN EEQUIEK.- 
 
 Mr. Requier is of S"rench descent, and was born in Charles- 
 ton, South CaroUna. • He was educated in his native city, and 
 adopted law as his profession, being admitted to the bar at the early 
 age of nineteen. Three years before that time, however, he had 
 appeared before the public as an author. He practiced law a 
 short time in Charleston; then moved to Marion Court-house, in 
 the eastern portion of .the. state, continuing his profession there 
 
UVm<i IVJRfTI^S OF THE SOUTH. 455 
 
 for four or five years; aud,th9n, in 1850, removed to Mobile, 
 Alabama, where, in 1853, he was appointed United States Attor- 
 ney for the Southern District of Alabama.,, During the war of se- 
 cession he l;ield,tlv^ office, of Confederate States; Attorney for 
 Alabama. At the close of the war, after a residence of fifteen 
 years in Mobile, he removed North, and is now practicing law in 
 tlie city of New^ York. r . , , ■ 
 
 Upon the occasion of his departure from Mobile to New York 
 a journal of the former city thus.gracefujly spoke of him : — 
 
 "It is natural that we should grant grudgjxig^y. what we cannot 
 afford to part with j and, in the present case we thus constrain- 
 edly contribute a jurist of eminent skill, energy, and acquire- 
 ments ; an orator who blends the impassioned fervour of Prentiss 
 with the laboriously informed acumen of Pinckney ; a litterateur 
 whose productions are foremost amongst those, which illustrate 
 the artistic resources of his section ; and last, but not least, a gen* 
 tleman whose amiable deportment-and refined manners are the 
 genuine reflex of a soul '\i;capa,ble of guile. " 
 
 In person, Mr. Requier is a small man, nervQus, and quick- 
 moving; has l)lack eyes, beaxd, and hair; speaks with earnest, 
 ness and with lively play of features y is scrupulously nice in 
 person, elegant and attractive in manners, and rather Frencli in 
 general style; is married, ai^d has a family. 
 
 His chirogTEqph, like his mintl, is, a. rao^el of neatness, com- 
 pactness and clearness. A never-weaiying will seems to run like 
 a thread through, his ornate, and uniform Iiaadwriting. This 
 style of penmanship, always accompanies minds that are both 
 earnest in logical habits and fastidious in matters of taste. ' He 
 punctuates, as he thinks, with remarkable; exactness and scrupu- 
 lous attention to the niceties of tliat difficult art. He does 
 nothing carelessly. 1 His chirography is calligraphy. 
 
 As an author, Mr^ Requier — =he is popularly known z& Judge 
 Requier — hag produq^d ,tbe following works : 
 
 I. The Spanish Exile. A play in blank verse, which was pub- 
 
4S6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 lished in the author's seventeenth year. It enjoyed a fair popu- 
 larity and was acted with success. 
 
 2. The Old Sanctuary. Apre-revolutionary romance, of which 
 the scene is in South Carolina. It was published a year or two 
 subsequent to the preceding, and makes quite a small volume. 
 
 3. Marco Bozzaris. A tragedy. 
 
 4. Foems. A duodecimo volume, published by Lippincott in 
 1859, of which the initial poem is Crystalline. This volume is 
 an eclectic one, made up of the author's miscellaneous poems, 
 written at various times. 
 
 In the course of a year or two Mu Requier proposes to issue 
 another volume of a similar character, to embrace, also, poems 
 written since 1859. 
 
 The list of his works shows us that Mr. Requier has exercised 
 his powers in several departments. He has devoted his atten- 
 tion, and with success, to fiction, the drama, law, the essay, and 
 the lecture ; but in none of these has he taken a position so 
 marked and distinctive as he has in the domain of lyric poetiy — 
 using that term in its widest sense. 
 
 He stands before the world as a poet, and it is in this capacity, 
 especially, that I propose to consider his claims to distinction as 
 a litterateur. 
 
 Mr. Requier has written for the few — the select and the cul- 
 tivated. He is in no sense a Bums, a Dupont, a Biiger, or a 
 Berchet. He is as nearly as possible the antipodal of Hudibras 
 Butler, Kortum, Scarron, and that style of thinkers. Cultivated 
 and sensitive himself, he has tastes that separate him from the 
 many. His genius is chaste, logical, vigorous, ideal, and sub- 
 jective. In chastened energy, ideal purity, and symmetrical art, 
 he stands clearly first among the poets of the South. He has 
 less sensuous fervour than Ha)me ; less geniality and naturalness 
 than Timrod ; less melodramatic verve and brilliant antithesis than 
 Flash ; and less dash and graceful fire than Randall ; but at the 
 same time he has more suggestive ideality, greater philosophical 
 art, and a more elevated range of thought than any Of them. He 
 
LIVING WRITRRS OF THE SOVtA 457 
 
 is metaphysical, and in the same degree removed from the sen- 
 suous and the popular. In this he bears some relation to Shelley 
 in English, and Lenau in German. His poems will rarely be sung 
 in drawing-rooms, and never in the streets. His is not the lyri- 
 cal fire of B&anger, nor the lyrical facility of Mdore ; iior has he 
 aught of the popularity of Elliott, nor of the simphcity of 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 I propose to give some specimens of his, lighter verse, before 
 taking up the longer and superior, though less popular poems. 
 
 In the way of light and playful fancy, these stanzas, entitled 
 Who Was It? are dainty and pleasing : — •" 
 
 I met — when was it ? Oh ! between 
 
 The suijset and the mom 
 Of one indelible day as green 
 
 As memory's oldest bom. 
 I met her where the grasses grow — 
 
 Away from tower, and town — 
 Whose gypsy bomiet clipf the glow 
 
 Of chestnut isles of brown ! 
 
 I asked the rose to breathe her name ; 
 
 She pouted and she said, 
 She could not speak of her who came 
 
 To pale her richest red. 
 I asked the lily, ripple-rimmed — 
 
 A flake-like curve of snow — 
 She sighed her glory had been dimmed 
 
 By one she did not know. 
 
 I stooped beside a tufted bed 
 
 Of leaflets moist with dew. 
 Where one sweet posy hung its head 
 
 Of deep, divinest blue ; 
 And asked the violet if ier power 
 
 Could reach that spell of flame. 
 She smUed, " I am her favourite flower, 
 
 And — Lizzie ! — is her name " 
 39 
 
458 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 To the indifferent reader of verse the following exquisite utter- 
 ance of a soul filled with that divinest of all human themes will 
 probably suggest Morris's Near the Lake ; because there is a 
 lake, a maiden, a love, and a death, in both. The theme, tlie 
 metre, and the rhythm, are all different, however; and in all 
 these respects the true artist will recognise the vast superiority of 
 this, which Mr. Requier calls Only a Dream : — 
 
 By the lake beyond the meadow. 
 
 Where the lilies blow — 
 As the young moon dipt and lifted 
 
 Her reflected bow ! — 
 Lived and died a dream of beauty. 
 
 Many years ago. 
 
 Something made the milk-white blossoms 
 
 Even whiter grow ; 
 Something gave the dying sunset 
 
 An intenser glow, 
 And enriched the qup of rapture. 
 
 Filled to oveiflow. 
 
 Hope was frail, and Passion fleeting — 
 
 It is often so ; 
 Visions bom of golden sunsets 
 
 With the sunsets go : 
 To have loved is to have sufiered 
 
 Martyrdom below ! 
 
 By the lake beyond the meadow, 
 
 Where the lilies blow — 
 O ! the glory there that perished. 
 
 None shall ever know — 
 When a human heart was broken. 
 
 Many years ago ! • 
 
 Among the sad utterances of lament for a lost cause — the 
 threnodies of a sorrowing South in her recent defeat, and tlie 
 furling and folding of her conqrered banner — Mr. Requier's 
 Ashes of Glory holds honourable place. I give it entire : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. ASi 
 
 Fold up the gorgeous sillten sun, 
 
 By bleeding martyrs blest. 
 And heap the laurels it has won 
 
 Above its place of rest. 
 
 No trumpet's note need harshly blare — 
 
 No drum funereal roE — 
 Nor trailing sables drape the bier 
 
 That frees a datmtless soul ! 
 
 It lived with Lee, and decked his brow 
 
 From Fate's empyreal Pahn : 
 It sleeps the sleep of Jackson now — 
 
 As spotless and as calm. 
 
 It was outnumbered — not outdone ; 
 
 And they shall shuddering tell. 
 Who struck the blow, its latest gun 
 
 Flashed ruin as it fell. 
 
 Sleep, shrouded Ensign ! — not the breeze 
 
 That smote the victor tar. 
 With death across the heaving seas 
 
 Of fiery Trafalgar; 
 
 Not Arthur's knights, amid the gloom 
 
 Their knightly deeds have starred ; 
 Nor Gallic Henry's matchless plume. 
 
 Nor peerless bom Bayard ! — 
 
 Not all that antique fables feign 
 
 And Orient dreams disgorge ; 
 Nor yet the Silver Cross of Spain 
 
 And Lion of St, George 
 
 Can bid thee pale ! Proud emblem, still 
 
 Thy crimson glory shines 
 Beyond the lengthened shades that fill 
 
 Their proudest kingly lines. 
 
 Sleep ! in thine own historic night. 
 
 And be thy blazoned scroll : 
 A ■warriof's banner takes its flight 
 
 To greet the warrior's soult 
 
4^0 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Mr. Requier has written but few sonnets; yet a sonnet in his 
 hand could never be a failure, and would come as near being a 
 success as sonnets usually do. 
 
 Of his longer poems four deserve especial mention here. 
 Classified according to their : length, these four are : Crystalline, 
 The Legend of Tremaine, Ode to Shakspeare, and Ode to Vic- 
 tory. 
 
 The Ode to Victory was written early in 1862. It is the 
 author's most elaborate production, and in artistic finish is not sur- 
 passed by any poem of the war. It is a national ode of which the 
 theme is the then-new nationality of the South, with its opening 
 struggles, its babtisms of blood, its several triumphs, and above 
 all, its haughty hope?. The onomatopoetic touches are startlingly 
 bold and of fair success — the rolling rattle of drums, the bugles' 
 blare, and the tramp-tramp of armed hosts. The close of this 
 Ode has been justly admired as a "masterpiece of poetic elo- 
 quence, imagery and vigour " ; — 
 
 Aspiring soul of ovir devoted land — 
 
 Heroic Mother, hail ! 
 Still — though the foeman fringe thine ocean sand. 
 
 And every gale 
 Bring with it argosies of scorching sail 
 To wrest thy summer jewels — thou shalt be 
 Of Freedom yet^ the fruit-dispensing tree ! 
 
 Again, in spite of thine unspoken woes. 
 Thy wilted Paradises shall unfold 
 
 And blossom as the rose ; 
 And o'er the outstretched arms of thine lUyrian coast. 
 From rumbling marts to isles in purple distance lost, 
 
 The world shall yield thee tribute-tithes of gold; 
 And that pure flower 
 Which pearls thy garments in a bridal shower, 
 
 Shall yet behold 
 Its garlands wrought into an ampler dower 
 
 Than any fleece of which the Bards have told; 
 And if it needs must spark thine altars now. 
 
 And turn thy netted radiance into shade, 
 
 Let it bum on ! — no Prietess ever made 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. A^l 
 
 A grander offeifcg or a holier vow ! 
 
 Already breathes the Oracle iwith lips 
 (Prophetic of thy fortunes an4 bf thee 
 Glassed ujtbe^a^r futurity), ■ -y 
 
 That thrilling say : " Tijy winds sha^l waft the ships 
 Of an all-conquering Commerce round the earth ; 
 While every star of thy beleaguered birth 
 Rains overflowing Honour, V/ealth, and Worth 
 Among the banded Nations, 
 Like Joseph blest, of bowing aonsteUations ; 
 Beloved, benignant — wise, - and strong, apd, free — 
 A nobler Venice on a mightier Sea !" 
 
 In the body of the poem, tjiis picture of Jhe emergence of the 
 nation in the silvery purity oi an unvested virgin from the 
 agitated ocean below, is slightly out of Mr. Requieir's usual vein, 
 but is very Ifelling:— • : -Kn. I , 
 
 But as an ivory moon, 
 
 Transliicent in the liquid eyes of June, 
 
 When vapours dim 
 
 The saintly rim 
 
 Of all the starry seraphim. 
 Ascending, steeps the ragingi deeps 
 In floods of molten .silver to. the brim; 
 
 So, with an astral inotion, _ 
 
 Above the wild comjnotion 
 Of the greatest mortal' feud 
 
 Beside the greatest Ocean, 
 The rising Constellation South has hurled 
 Her cororiettejd Virgins,' chastely nude. 
 Upon a startled world ! 
 
 The Legend of Tremaine was written for the English press 
 just before the close of the war, and is the author's'^ most purely 
 ideal poem. Its very perfeqtHess.as an ideal work raises it above 
 the sympathies, the range, and the intelligence, of the reading 
 world — of the vast Many that make up the complex idea of the 
 public. Not one in a thousand will see anything in it; and 
 39* 
 
462 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 probably not one in ten thousand will understand it ;. while hardly 
 one in a million will appreciate it fully. 
 
 Tb the popular mind it is somewhat like Tennyson's Lady of 
 Shalott and Miss Talle/s EnnersUe; though he that' regards the 
 theme rather than the form of a poem will npt find it much like 
 either. 
 
 The story of this Legend is of the Lady Violet of Tremaine, 
 who devotes herself to liberate from enchantment her lover, the 
 Knight Ivor, who lay bound in a phantom-guarded cavern with 
 a charm which cannot be broken, 
 
 Till a self-devoted maid 
 Have successfully essayed 
 There to read what is arrayed 
 In a sphinx-like token. 
 
 Lady Violet, tlirough many a discouraging trial, succeeds in 
 
 reading 
 
 the dazzling riddle well. 
 
 Which the banded lore of Hell 
 Never has contrived to speU. 
 
 The dazzling riddle is the transcendently beautiful scheme of 
 Life — of the Human, its dependence upon the Divine, and 
 the relations between the two — all through the mystic symbol- 
 ism of correspondence. The symbols that decorate the cavern 
 the maiden reads — the sunlight that streams upon the carven 
 gems : — 
 
 First, a diamond lily glows, 
 • Next, a ruby-sculptured rose. 
 
 Then a nettle — black as crows 
 Of the Witch of Endor ; 
 
 and evolves their correspondentia.1 significance : — 
 
 Unto diamond, ruby, jet — 
 And the blossoms in them met — 
 One unchanging Sun supplieth, 
 From its waste, discarded glow. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 463 
 
 Heat and light : these — as we laiow — 
 Are the Life of each below. 
 Which without them dieth. 
 
 But that single vital flame, 
 Unto everything the same, 
 
 Gilds the object or degrades it, 
 Just as this conspu-es to be — 
 Whether pebble, leaf or tree — 
 Since, within the jet, we see 
 That it only shades it. 
 
 So from him who rules the whole, 
 To the gem-like human Soul, 
 
 Heat and light, or shine or smother — 
 Heat — the Love we lean upon ; 
 Light — the Wisdom leading on ; 
 Life — the two combined in One; 
 
 Tor there is no other. 
 
 Every heart may be a gem 
 In His living diadem. 
 
 While the garnered ages fill It ; — 
 Crystal, flashing, frozen fire. 
 Ruby, flushed with wild de^re, 
 All to which we dare aspire. 
 
 If it only luill it. 
 
 Sorcerer, in this lily see. 
 How my Maker dwells in me ; 
 
 And for swift elucidation 
 Of that rose's bleeding charms. 
 Belted warrior, spring to arms 1 
 Monster ! shrieks are vain alarms — 
 
 Nettle means damnation ! 
 
 The secret is thus read. The charm is dispelled. The mon- 
 ster vanishes. The lovers are happy. Allegory's veil is lifted. 
 It is the story of Life. 
 
 The Ode to Sliakspedre is one of the author's earlier produc- 
 tions; and is, /ar consequent, more popular, more fervid, and 
 
464 LIVING WglTERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 less artistic. It is more spirited than Sprague' g Sbakspeare Ode. 
 Had I had the naming of Mr. Requier's poem,. I should have 
 called it an Ode on Shakspeare. The poem' does not conveni- 
 ently admit of extracts to illustrate its style. . , 
 
 Crystalline, however, I .cpnsider the fhrf er<euvre of our 
 author. It is not only his longest poem, but also his most 
 finished. The thesis of Poe's Eureka I presume is familiar to 
 most of my readers. That of Crystalline lies in the same field. 
 The author of Eureka held that the Creator of the Universe is 
 "one, individual, unconditional, a relative and absolute Particle 
 Proper," which, by radiation, fills its sphere-^ the universe — 
 witii subdivisions of itself The author of Crystalline holds 
 that the Creator of the Universe is a Personal God, who, from 
 Himself — analogously to the emanations pf odour from a 
 flower, or Hght from the sun; — created the universe by radiation 
 of particles of Himself. Poe was a pantheist or an atheist. 
 Requier is a Christian. 
 
 The thesis of Crystalline is the presentation, in the form of a 
 fictitious narrative, of the irnmutable law that obtained in tlie 
 creation of the universe. More carefully and fully expressed, it 
 is — the presentation, in the guise of a fictitious narrative, of 
 the immutable law which. governs the mode and order of the 
 development or derivation of an art-product from a finite, im- 
 perfect, or created person, as demonstratively illustrating, through 
 the Scriptural doctrine of analogy or correspondence, the same, 
 and, therefore, equally immutable law which governed the mode 
 and order of the original development or derivation of the 
 universe fi-om an Infinite, Perfect, or Uficreated Person — in 
 other words, a Divine Huinanity — in one word," God; and as 
 farther evincing by necessary sequence from the same controlling 
 analogy or correspondence, the immortality of the creaturely 
 
 soul. , . ,, .. If 
 
 The theology of Crystalline is SwedenbprgiaiV:. 
 The story is one of a young artist converted froin atheism to 
 Christianity. • 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 4^5 
 
 The argument rests upon a peculiar analogy called corres- 
 pondence. What is correspondence? I turn to Prof. Bush for 
 an answer : " Correspondence is a technical tenn in the theo- 
 logical system taught by Emanuel Swedenborg, denoting that 
 peculiar relation which subsists between the Divine ideas and the 
 Divine works; between the essential and: the formal; between 
 the spiritual and the natural; between the mental, and the mate- 
 rial. While fable, figure, metaphor, comparison, serve merely to 
 liken one natural object to another for the purpose of illustra- 
 tion, correspondence iifaplieg a formative force, and isthu&'the 
 relation of a producing cause to its resulting effect, as of the soul 
 to the body, and of the various faculties of the mind- to the 
 various orgjihs or viscera of the body. Correspondence, in other 
 words, is the embodiment of spiritual archet5fpes upon the 
 natural plane. TTiUs, truth is to the spiritual world what light is 
 to the natural world; truth and Hght, therefore, are correspon- 
 dences. Love is to the spiritual world what heat is to the 
 natural world ; love and heat, therefore, are correspondences. 
 The understanding is to the soul what the lungs are to the 
 body; the understanding, therefore, and the lungs correspond 
 to each other. So also the affections with the heart as an organ ; 
 so jn fine with the whole microcosm of the : body, the former 
 being the sphere of causes, the latter of effects. It were easy 
 to extend the principle of correspondence from the microcosm 
 to the macrocosm, and to regard the whole material creation as 
 a representative theatre, whereon are, mirrored forth those primal 
 essences and living substantial forces that give form under the 
 Deity to all the: organisms of the various kiiigdoms of nature, 
 and through them elaborate an infinity of uses. " 
 
 The story of Crystalline is brief: An Italian baroness, in the 
 pride of her great beauty, had her portrait painted and put above 
 the altar in her chapel, displacing the Madonna. A plague 
 spreads through the land. The baroness regards it as a retri- 
 butive visitation for her sacrilege ; and, when her son is smitten, 
 she vows that if he be spared her she will wear sack-cloth during 
 
4^6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the remainder of her life, reinstate the Madonna, and submit 
 the usurping picture to divers indignities, the last of which is to 
 be its burning by her son on the thirtieth anniversary of his 
 birth. This is done by the son — the hero of the story — an 
 artist and an atheist. Upon that act tiiere arises in his mind the 
 desire to reproduce in a picture the face of his mother, the like- 
 ness of which he saw but on the day of its destruction, sur- 
 rounded by emblems of her crime. This he does. The 
 creation of his mind, thus embodied in the form of a maiden, is 
 made to confound the atheistic logic of her creator ; and his soul 
 is lifted to a knowledge of God. 
 
 The poem itself is a masterpiece of condensation ; and any 
 analysis short of the whole must omit some essential points. To 
 be appreciated, it must be read entire ; and to be understood 
 must be studied. It is not written for the Many ; and th6 Many 
 will not read it at all ; but it is a great poem, and that is suffi- 
 cient reason for the Man/s want of appreciation. 
 
 The opening scene is an interview between the Artist and an 
 aged Hermit, an attacM oi the family, who had given religious 
 instruction to the Artist years before. The Artist has just re- 
 turned from Rome, where formalism had made him doubt the 
 whole^ system of Christianity, and with it the whole system of a 
 God. His defiant utterance of this negation, as the interview ter- 
 minates, is brilUantly forcible : — 
 
 He paused, and lifting o'er his head 
 His haughty hand, at parting, said : 
 "Behind this canvass, far out-rolled, 
 From the teeming earth to the starry fold ; 
 Behind its foliage, flower, and fruit. 
 Its reptile form and its reasoning br\ite. 
 There is no super-terrestrial sphere. 
 Where the Dead shall arise, and reappear 
 In the bosom of Him who placed them here. 
 I hate the fanatic, and scorn the lie. 
 That madly peoples a vacant sky ; 
 And brand the whole mysterious scheme 
 A coward's hope and an idiot's dream ! " 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 467 
 
 The burning of the picture of his mother by tlie Artist is the 
 essential beginning of the poem as an ai'gument. Here is born 
 the desire — the Love part of the creative process — to create. 
 This is an act of the will. Then follows the thought-scheme — 
 the Wisdom part of the creative process — by which the desire 
 can be carried out. This is an act of the understanding. Then 
 results the creation — the Power part of the creative process — 
 the effect of the warmth of Love directed by the light of Wis- 
 dom. The real thing created — the thought ^ — came through 
 the understanding, moved by the will, and is as immortal as its 
 source. As with that thought, so with a human soal ; it comes 
 from the creative will and understanding, and is as immortal as 
 God. 
 
 This process of reasoning is forced upon the mind of the 
 atheist by means of a plot most adroitly managed, and this forms 
 the main matter of the poem : — 
 
 " It displays a ravishingly beautiful woman, in the midst of an 
 earthly Paradise, at the verge of sunset, undergoing the charm 
 of a venomous serpent, and delivered from its fatal fascinations 
 — in the supposed instant of delineation — by a suddenly inter- 
 posed ilood of moonlight, which has disturbed and broken the 
 spell. In this ideal design the painter has reproduced the 
 wondrous loveliness of his deceased mother, and blended the 
 portrait with appropriate symbols of her sacrilegious egotism and 
 its accepted atonement. The former — self-love — the root of 
 a// transgression — is exj^ressed by the serpent with its deadly 
 charm ; the latter — saving grace, through genuine repentance and 
 amendment of life — by the opportune effulgence of the moon. " 
 
 Gazing on this picture, the Artist, through an over-taxed and 
 narcotized brain, sees enacted the scene he has represented on 
 the canvass. The figures all live and move. "The reptile 
 begins to weave his ensnaring spell around the maiden, to the 
 extreme alarm and horror of the Artist, who, by one of those 
 unaccountable aberrations which not unfrequently attend the 
 evolution of abnormal visions, overlooks the saving moonligjit 
 
468 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 he had prominently introduced into the piece. The wily eye of 
 the serpent — the incarnation of self-love — simulates the presen- 
 tation of a graduated series of rare and alluring gems — types of 
 the insidious disguises which that subtle principle assumes — 
 until his victim, finally, begins to be enclosed in the meshes of 
 an inextricable bewilderment. . She then sees her peril with- 
 out the power of averting it ; and exclaims, in audible anguish, 
 against the .Cause that had placed hex in so beautiful a world, 
 only to cast her from it into barren notiiingness. To this the 
 Artist eagerly replies : — 
 
 "Child of my souli thou shall not die; 
 For thou wast framed, Oh ! dream divine. 
 
 Not merely of the earthy dross 
 
 Of thine investiture of gloss ; 
 But, ere my pencil bade thee shine 
 Within thy perishable shrine. 
 
 Thou WAST — ART — MUST BE Still a part, 
 By crumbling matter unconfined. 
 Of this, my own aspiring heart, 
 Which sphered thee in my mind — 
 
 An image of that shaping force. 
 
 As ENDURING AS ITS SOURCE." 
 
 When thus spake he, how answered she. 
 The maiden fashioned marvellously? 
 
 Amid the flash, the crash, the storm. 
 As a bolt from its red bosom warm : 
 
 "Behind this canvass, far out-rolled. 
 From the teeming earth to the starry fold ; 
 Behind its foliage, flower, and fruit. 
 Its reptile form and its reasoning brute. 
 There is no super-terrestrial sphere, 
 ^ Where the Dead shall arise, and reappear 
 In the bosom of Him who placed them here. 
 I hate the fanatic, and scorn the lie. 
 That madly peoples a vacant sky ; 
 And brand the whole mysterious scheme 
 A coward's hope and an idiot's dream. " 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 469 
 
 The poem continues : 
 
 Where the dying lamp doth shine, 
 Hurling the sculptured Vase, so fine, 
 Down, with its purple, perfumed wine. 
 He fell, quivering from the dart 
 Shot through Ms paternal heart. 
 
 But when the Morn as a martyr came, 
 Regeiierate froin the "midnight flame. 
 Near the form whose locks of snow 
 On its shoulders overflow. 
 An altered man was kneeling there 
 For benediction on his prayer ! 
 
 And thus he spoke^ the hermit old. 
 Watching him with love four-fold : 
 "The peirfect Lord who reigns above 
 Created thee from Perfect Love ; 
 Like that fair image thou wast made. 
 In a World of Light that cannot fade. 
 Save that he, does spontaneously — 
 Harmoniously — consummately. 
 What mortals mould imperfectly ; 
 And as it triumphs in thine eyes. 
 Through beams of the benignant skies. 
 O'er the baffled Demon there. 
 Whose deadly charm works everywhere 
 To make the man a god appear ; 
 So, saved by His redeeming grace 
 From that serpent's slimy trace, 
 With His glory on thy face. 
 Live, for thou art born to be 
 Heir of His immortality. " 
 
 This is the essential end of the poem. Here the argument 
 doses, complete. 
 
 40 
 
47° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 JAMES L. REYNOLDS, D.D. 
 
 Dr. Beynolds is a native of Charleston, South Carolina; 
 and is at this time Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, 
 Sacred Literature, and Evidences of Christianity, in the Uni- 
 versity of his native state, at Columbia. He has been con- 
 nected with that institution for nearly twenty years ; and previous 
 to his election there had held chairs in other colleges. He is 
 generally recognized as the best Latin scholar in his state; 
 while his attainments in general literature and ethics are such as 
 to rank him among tlie first scholars in the South. His studies 
 in Anglo-Saxon are very thorough; and he has produced a 
 Grammar of that language, which, however, has never been 
 published. Dr. Reynolds's contributions to polite and ethical 
 literature in the periodical way have been numerous ; but none 
 of these have taken book form. He has been connected at 
 some time with journalism, as an editor ; but his vocation in life 
 has been to teach in the professorial lecture-room and in the 
 pulpit. He is a leading minister in his denomination — the 
 Baptist — and is one of their most popular divines. 
 
 During the present year he has prepared for publication a 
 series of Southern School Readers, of which, numbers one to 
 four have already appeared from the publishing-house of Duffie 
 and Chapman, of Columbia. He wrote de novo a good deal of 
 the matter for the earlier numbers of this series. 
 
 MRS. MARY C. RION. 
 
 Although a single volume, and that upon so practical a sub- 
 ject as floriculture, may not entitle its author to a place among 
 authors, yet, in the present case, I include the author of The 
 Ladled Southern Florist — one volume, duodecimo — among 
 Southern writers, upon the better grounds of mature culture. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 471 
 
 thorough study, and general accomplishments, both literary and 
 artistic. 
 
 Mrs. Rion, nie Weir, is, I believe, a native of Columbia, 
 South Carolina ; and at present a resident of Winnsboro, in the 
 same state. Her husband — Col. James H. Rion -^ is a promi- 
 nent member of the bar, and served with distinction in the war 
 of secession. 
 
 MRS. ANNA CORA MOWATT RITCHIE. 
 
 The life of no other of the writers of the South presents so 
 much that is striking and noteworthy as does that of Mrs. 
 Ritchie. Her life has been a brilliant romance in itself 
 It will be found given with spirit and a considerable degree of 
 detail, in. Mrs.- Freeman's Women of the South; and given with 
 great piquancy and spirited candour in Mrs. 'Sl'ic!s\\€% Autobi- 
 ography of an Actress. 
 
 She was born at Bordeaux, France, during a temporary resi- 
 dence of her fatlier — Samuel Gouverneur Ogden, Esquire, a 
 merchant of New York — in that city. Her infancy was spent 
 at La Castagne, a fine country asat near Bordeaux. In her 
 eighth year — in 1826 — the family returned to New York; and 
 she, with her sister, was placed at a boarding-school in that city. 
 At an early age — at an infantile age, in fact — she showed her 
 taste for histrionic pursuits ; and at fourteen got up the Aleire 
 of Voltaire to celebrate her father's birtli-day. It was a suc- 
 cess in itsway. 
 
 When about sixteen years of age, she was married to James 
 Mowatt, Esquire, a young lawyer of wealth and culture. 
 
 At eighteen her health gave way, and a residence in Europe 
 of near two years followed. Upon her return to America, Mr. 
 Mowatt failed through speculations, and they were left destitute. 
 Mrs. Freeman thus states this point: "Very tenderly were these 
 tidings unfolded to Anna, but her dream was broken. Alone, in 
 
47a LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the bower built fpr her in the first butterfly phase of her mar- 
 ried Hfe, she went down into herself, and sat in solemn conclave 
 with the present, the future, her own good gifts, and new-born 
 thoughts. It was the crisis of her hfe, and she came out of it 
 full-grown, with a purpose. ■ She was possessed of a full, rich 
 contralto voice ; she would give dramatic readings, like Mr. Van- 
 denhoflf, and redeem her home." 
 
 This course was noble ; and right nobly she succeeded. 
 
 Later, she turned her attention to authorship, as a pursuit, 
 and with abundant success. Evelyn, a novel, and Fashion, a 
 comedy, gave her a prominent place in the public mind as an 
 author. Here, again, a misfortune — the failure of her pub- 
 lishers — brought her to poverty. ^ But again she rose to the oc- 
 casion, and again set out in a new sphere in life — the stage. 
 She appeared as Pauline, in Bulwer's Lady of Lydns at the 
 Park Theatre ; and with briUiant success. After two years of 
 triumph on American, boards, she 'tried her fortunes in England. 
 Her reception there, at first cool, was changed to a sojourn of 
 such triumph as had never before — nor has since — been ac- 
 corded to an American actress. This triumph was twO-fold — 
 as an author and as an actress, she having published her Armand 
 at that time. 
 
 Mr. Mowatt's death occurred at this time — in 1851, I be- 
 lieve — and two years afterwards, Mrs. Mowatt returned to 
 America ; revisited the principal cities professionally ; took her 
 farewell tour ; retired from the :stage, taking her final leave of it 
 in June, 1854; and shortly thereafter became the wife of Wil- 
 liam Foushee Ritchie, Esquire, at that time editor of the Rich- 
 mond Enquirer. 
 
 A tourist of that date, writing of our author's new home, and 
 new life, says : " She lives, as a poet should, in a cottage orni a 
 little distance from the city. I could have selected her house 
 from a thousand, as easily as I could the fair occupant among a 
 multitude of women. There were flowers before the door, 
 flowers on the lawn, a flowery taste manifest in the disposition 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF Tim SOUTH. 473 
 
 of the ■window- drapery;, a pleasant, affectionate, riant expres- 
 sion, radiating from all around, fitly preluding the holy harmony 
 of a happy home. Within, the entourage was more exquisite 
 still. JBooks, pictures,, statuettes, and; all the every-day, yet ele- 
 gant appliances of household life, completed the ideal 'poetry 
 
 of home,'" : : i, : ; . ; 
 
 About this time appearfed the Avtobuigraphy of an Actress, 
 to be followed by a series of brilliant books relating mostly to 
 scenic life, and the gayeties of fashionable experiences, remotely 
 or otherwise connected with mimic life. 
 
 Edgar Poe said of Mjs. Mowatt as an actress, in the begin- 
 ning of her career: 'findeedj the great charm of her manner is 
 its naturalness. She looks, .speaks,, and moves, with a well- 
 controlled impulsiveness, as different as can be conceived 
 from the customary rant and cant, the hack conventionality of 
 the stage. . . . , Her action is distingiiished by an ease and 
 self-possession, which would do credit to a veteran^ Her step 
 is the perfection of grace. ; Often .have I watched her for hours 
 with the closest senitioy, yet never for an instant did I observe 
 her in an attitude of the least awkwardness or even constraint ; 
 while many of her seemingly impulsive gestures spoke in loud 
 terms of the woman of genius, of the poet imbued with the pro- 
 foundest sentiment of the beautiful in motion.* 
 
 Just before the war, Mrs. Ritchie was taking conspicuous and 
 practical part in the Mount Vernon Association movement, as 
 Vice-Regent for Virginia; and went to that work, as she did to 
 everytliing she ever undertook, with her whole soul. 
 
 The following are Mrs. Ritchie's literary productions: — 
 
 1. Pelayo, or the Cavern of Covadonga. An epic in five cantos. 
 This is a youthful production that has never asked nor received 
 a great dealof attention, especially of late years. It was pub- 
 lished by the Harpers, about 1838, under the nom de flume of 
 Isabel. 
 
 2. Reviewers Reviewed. A satire aimed at the reviewers of 
 
 40* 
 
474 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Pelayo; appeared probably in 1839 — a brochure \q5& ambitious, 
 perhaps, than Pelayo itself. 
 
 3. Galzara, or the Persian Slave. A play; appeared about 
 1840. It is sometimes spoken of as Gulzora, instead of 
 Galzara. 
 
 4. Evelyn. A tale of domestic life, in two volumes. 
 
 5. Abridgment of the Life of 'Goethe, was written before 
 Evelyn, but the date of neither is at hand. 
 
 6. Abridgment of the Life of Madame dArblay. This goes 
 with the preceding, as one of the failures at book-making. 
 
 7. Fashion. A five-act comedy; was "brought out with 
 unusual magnificence," at the Park Theatre, in 1845, and was 
 pubUshed some months later. Poe at that day thought but 
 little of the literary merits of this play; though he thought 
 there were indications of genius given forth in the production, 
 notwithstanding its demerits. He rather flippantly says of it : 
 "Fashion, in a word, owes what it had of success to its being 
 the work of a lovely woman, who had already excited interest, 
 and to the very commonplaceness or spirit of conventionality 
 which rendered it readily comprehensible and appreciable by the 
 public proper. It was much indebted, too, to the carpets, the 
 ottomans, the chandeliers, and the conservatories, which gained 
 so decided a popularity for that despicable mass of inanity, the 
 London Assurance of Bourcicault." 
 
 8. Armand, or the Prince and the Peasant. A tragedy in five 
 acts ; was published in 1847, or thereabouts. This drama takes 
 high rank, and deserves it. I shall give a few extracts below, 
 illustrative of the author's blank-verse style. 
 
 9. The Fortune Hunter. A novel of New York society.- This 
 appeared, I believe, undei: the nom de plume of Helen Berkley; 
 at least, I am informed now that- that nom was used by Mrs. 
 Mowatt about that time in the publication of some magazine 
 stories. These same stories were spicy, racy, and generally 
 wholesomely satiric upon the foibles of the fashionable world 
 of the great metropolis. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 475 
 
 10. Autobiography of an Actress, or Eight Years on the Stage; 
 is one of the most readable books of its kind in our literature. 
 Its title is fully descriptive of the contents. It appeared in 
 
 11. Mimic Life, "a series of tales and pictures of the stage" 
 — full of the romance of theatre-life — appeared in 1855. 
 
 12. Twin Roses, — similar in its scenery to the preceding — 
 "a sweet, sad narrative, dipped in the tenderest poetry of the 
 writer's soul," says a woman whose own soul was all poetry and 
 sympathy. 
 
 13. Fairy Fingers. A novel also characteristic of the writer; 
 was published by Carlton & Co., about i860. 
 
 14. The Mute Singer. A fascinating story, published by the 
 same. 
 
 1 5. The Clergyman's Wife, with Pen Portraits and Sketches, — 
 was issued by the same during the year 1867. 
 
 16. Florentine Sketches is said to be the work now in pro- 
 cess of preparation — under pen, so to speak-^by Mrs. Ritchie, 
 at the present time. 
 
 To-day Mrs. Ritchie is temporarily resident in London, I am 
 advised." 
 
 This scene from Armand is characteristic : — 
 
 King. Nay, Blanche, 
 
 Marnot thy beauty with this frigid hearing; 
 Frowns do not suit those gentle eyes, nor fierceness 
 Thy timid nature — weak thou art — 
 
 Blanche. Not weak. 
 
 My liege, when roused by insult and by wrong ! 
 I tell thee, haughty king — pffesumptuous man ! 
 That, like the unshorn locks the Nazarene 
 Vowed to his God, the purity of woman 
 Becomes at once her glory and her might ! 
 
 King. Ah, Blanche ! and is there no excuse for love? 
 
 Blan. Thy love is but self-love 1 that first and worst 
 Of passions — poisoned spring of every crime — 
 Which hath no attribute of perfect love I 
 
476 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 King. This to thy king? 
 
 Blan. Art Ii;ingly in thy deeds? 
 
 The star that shines so brightly, on thy breast 
 Is worthless if it shed no light within ! 
 The throne that lifts thee o'er thy fellow-men 
 Should teach thee virtues, which alone can raise 
 Thee 'bove them ! 
 
 King. . At thy feet let me implore — 
 
 Blan. Stand off!, approach me lyot I 
 
 King. Thou fearest me, then? 
 
 Blan. Fear thee? Danger should be where fear is — I see none ! 
 
 King. Woman ! thou shalt not br^ve me thus ! (Seizes her.) 
 No human power can save thee — thoU art iiiine 1 
 What are thy feeble struggles in my grasp? 
 
 Blan. (sinking on her knees.) Spare me, my liq^, spare me ! 
 
 King. It is thy turn . 
 
 To sue, and all in vain ! Thou hast forgot 
 That I am king, and thou hast no protector ! 
 
 Blan. (starting up\ I have ! I iave ! One who forsakes me not ! 
 One whom thou darest not brave. ' Unloose thy hold 
 Or dread his fury ! Heaven protects me still ! 
 
 The king releases her, awed by her manner. 
 Thou art my sovereign ; I a friendless subject — : 
 I woman, and thou man ! my helplessness 
 Was of itself a claim to thy protection : — . 
 A claim thou hast rejected ! Answer, King ! 
 Hast thou done right ? Man, was it well to use 
 Thy strength against my weakness ? Thou art dumb I 
 Thou canst not answer ! King of France, I scorn thee 1 
 
 Exit. 
 King. Why should I shrinlt from one so powerless? 
 And can it be that Virtue's presence awes 
 Me thus ? That Virtue which no wea;pon needs 
 Except its own resistless dignity ! 
 
 She speaks ; I'm hushed. She spurns me, and I cower — 
 She leaves me, and I dare not follow her ! 
 
 There is power in that scene — a dramatic power of situa- 
 tion — that rnarks its author as one capable of feeling, uttering, 
 and acting a passion, grand, even as that of the majesty of out- 
 raged and insulted purity. . The speakings it must be confessed, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 477 
 
 is a little declamatory ; but the occasion lifts it above:, that criti- 
 cism. If it were not declajjiatory, it would be uptrue to the 
 attitude of the scene. 
 
 The following extract. from the same has also power of the 
 same kind: — 
 
 King. B.eware ! our .patience is not made of stuff 
 For lasting — try it not beyond its strength — 
 Marry DeRohan's daughter ! 'Tis thy king commands. 
 
 Armand. My gracious liege, no king can tear 
 The landmarks from the honest path of Truth. 
 Marry ! call'st thou that marriage which but joins 
 Two hands with iron bonds? that yokes, but not 
 Unites, two hearts whose pulses never beat 
 In unison ? The legal crime that rnocks 
 The very name of marriage — that invades. 
 Profanes, destroys its inner holiness ? 
 No ! 'tis the spirit that alone can wed, 
 When with spontaneous joy it seeks, and finds, 
 And with its kindred spirit blends itself ! 
 My liege, there is no other marriage tie ! 
 
 Another extract — the utterance of a woman, however — of a 
 similar kind, and I shall close : — 
 
 Babette. You seemed so happy ! 
 
 Blanche. Then did I — do I seem the thing I am ! 
 Seem happy — how could I seem otherwise? 
 Tis happiness to me to live — to be ! 
 My very instincts — nay, the very use 
 Of every separate sense by which we hold 
 Communion visible wit! external being — 
 Is happiness! To gale upon the sky. 
 Arched in blue glory o'er my upturned head; 
 The forms of beauty, called by loving spring 
 Out of the affluent bosom of the earth ; 
 The sun, beneath whose warm, resplendent light 
 All nature teems: these simplest, daily things. 
 Which custom cannot strip of loveliness — 
 To look on these is to be happy ! — is 
 To feel my bosom swell with gratitude 
 To Him who made them to make us more blest ! 
 
478 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Edgar Poe, who dares everything, thus writes of the person- 
 nel of Mrs. Ritchie, then Mrs. Mowatt : " Her figure is sHght, 
 even fragile. Her face is a remarkably fine one, and of that 
 precise character best adapted to the stage. The forehead is, 
 perhaps, the least prepossessing feature, altliough it is by no 
 means an unintellectual one. Hair light auburn, in rich profu- 
 sion, and always arranged with exquisite taste. The eyes are 
 grey, brilliant, and expressive, without being full. The nose is 
 well formed, with the Roman curve, and indicative of energy. 
 This quality is also shown in the somewhat excessive prominence 
 of the chin. The mouth is large, with briUiant and even teeth, 
 and flexible lips, capable of the most instantaneous and effective 
 variations of expression. A more radiantly beautiful smile it is 
 quite impossible to conceive." 
 
 R. H. RIVERS, D.D. 
 
 Dr. Rivers has some distinction among the clergy of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church South. He was bom on thfe iitli 
 of September, 1814, in Montgomery County, Tennessee. He 
 graduated at La Grange College in Alabama at the age of twenty- 
 one. Upon graduation he was chosen Assistant Professor of 
 Languages in the same, and one year later was elected Professor 
 in the chair he had assisted; and continued to hold ±at position 
 for seven years; when — in 1843, that is — he was elected Presi- 
 dent of the Tennessee Conference Female Institute in Athens, 
 Alabama, which position he held five years. He was next called 
 to Centenary College in Jackson, Louisiana, as Professor of 
 Moral Science, and in 1849 was elected President of the same, 
 which office he held until 1854, when he returned to Alabama 
 and became President of his alma mater — La Grange College. 
 This institution was the following year removed to Florence, in 
 the same state. Dr. Rivers continued in charge of this college 
 until its exercises were interrupted by the war, when he went to 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 479 
 
 Centenary College at Summerfield, Alabama, of which he retained 
 charge during the war. After the war — in 1865 — he undertook 
 the management of a small school of young ladies at Somerville, 
 Tennessee, where he now resides. 
 
 Our author entered the ministry at the early age of seventeen ; 
 and since his twentieth year has been both preaching and teach- 
 ing. He has, during this very laborious life, found time to 
 write two volumes of philosophy, and has contributed largely to 
 the periodical press. Since the war he has written for The Land 
 We Love, published at Charlotte, North Carolina. 
 
 The two works of this author just referred to are : — 
 
 1. Mental Philosophy. 
 
 2. Moral Philosophy. These are favourite text-books, I believe, 
 in Methodist seminaries for young ladies. 
 
 WILLIAM JAMES RIVERS. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Professor Rivers is, I believe, a Charlestonian by birth. He 
 was, at least, for many years identified with that city as a teacher 
 of a classical school. In 1856 he was elected Professor of Greek 
 Literature in the South Carolina College at Columbia ; and upon 
 the reorganization of that institution after the war (1865) and its 
 change to a University, he was assigned to the School of Ancient 
 Languages and Literature, which position he now holds. 
 
 Professor Rivers has published : — 
 
 1. A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the 
 Proprietary Government by the Revolution ^ 1719 ; with an Ap- 
 pendix containing many valuable records hitherto unpublished ; 
 an octavo of 470 pages. 1856. Charleston. The work is a 
 valuable contribution to the historical literature of that state. 
 
 2. As secretary of the South Carolina Historical Society, 
 Professor Rivers has published some volumes of papers within 
 the scope of that society. He has also pubUshed a few occa- 
 sional poems, mostly lyrical. 
 
480 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 A writer in The Southern Quarterly Riview, upon the appear- 
 ance of Professor Rivers' s Sketch of the History of South Carolina, 
 in 1856, thus speaks of it: "We have first to remark that our 
 author, in the preparation of his work, had recourse to original in- 
 vestigations, and that at no inconsiderable expense he has brought 
 to light a large amount of valuable material, which he has issued 
 in an appendix. The accounts of our early history were so im- 
 perfect and unsatisfactory that a work was wanted which would 
 give something like a complete and consistent outline, and place 
 the facts of this remote period upon a sure historical basis. 
 This was not possible in any other way than that which was 
 pursued by our author ; and before we close this notice we wiU 
 be able to show tliat his efforts have been crowned with a large 
 measure of success. The book consists of ten chapters. . . . 
 Chapter I. opens with an account of the discoveries of the 
 fifteenth century, the voyages to America, and the visits to the 
 coast of South Carolina. In this chapter he has made some 
 original contributions to our history, to a few of which we will 
 call attention before we dismiss it. This was only possible by 
 going behind the authorities on whom our historians have reUed. 
 Ramsay, the most distinguished of them, gives his authorities for 
 our early history, and says that he relies more on Hewit than on 
 any other. He adds, too, that he is indebted to Chalmers's 
 Political Annals of the United Colonies. Ramsay's large obliga- 
 tions to Hewit could be easily exhibited, for, on some subjects, 
 he has copied page after page from him; and an examination 
 would show that wherever Hewit has spoken, Ramsay has done 
 no more than repeat him. Simms has copied Ramsay. Hewit 
 tells us his resources in his preface. These were good, but, in 
 regard to the early period of our history, wholly deficient. Arch- 
 dale and Oldmixon may have been in his possession, but they 
 knew little about our early history. It is to be remarked of 
 Chalmers's Political Annals, that it was so extensive in its design 
 that only a partial account could be given of each colony, and 
 hence it is deficient, tliough correct in its statements as far as it 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 481 
 
 goes. Neither Hewit, nor Ramsay, nor Chalmers, seems to 
 have examined our own records. Professor Rivers has gone to 
 the records from which Chalmers drew, and examined carefully 
 our state records also. With copies of every, paper in the office 
 at London which he supposed would cast light on important or 
 obscure points, and copies of manuscripts in all our public offi- 
 ces, he set to work to study out event after event, and made his 
 conclusions paramount to all surmises or opinions of Hewit and 
 other writers. When he was deficient in materials, he gathered 
 from them, and compared his own conclusions ; but in no instance 
 does he seem to have adopted their opinions when he was in 
 possession of materials for an independent judgment. Both Carroll 
 and Simms have preceded him in introducing the events of the 
 first chapter; but he differs fironi them in limiting the subject to 
 its true bounds. He leaves out De Soto, the settlements on the 
 St. John's in Florida, etc., and gives the events only which occur 
 in our present borders ; otherwise Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and 
 Mississippi, would be compelled to repeat the same in their his- 
 tories.'' 
 
 The reviewer's analysis of the other nine chapters develops die 
 fact that Professor Rivers has excelled all his predecessors in 
 that undertaking in the thoroughness and general ability with 
 which he has accomplished his task. The reviewer then proceeds 
 to give his general estimate as follows : "We regard the work of 
 Professor Rivers as not only the best, but the only history of the 
 period to which it refers. The author gives, proof of his care and 
 fidelity on every page, and we confidently predict for it a perma- 
 nent reputation. It seems to be marked by a spirit of impartial 
 justice. He strikes us as one who is in search of truth, and is 
 willing to go wherever it may lead. him. Though history and bi- 
 ography are technically distinguished, and in t?uth constitute 
 different departments of knowledge and inquiry, yet practically 
 there seems to be a necessary commingling of the two, and an 
 impossibility, when dealing in the one, not to infringe upon the 
 domain of the other. The exact line between them cannot be 
 41 
 
482 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 drawn. Whether in the opinion of the critic he has transcended 
 the boundary or not, his personal notices of individuals seem to 
 be just and truthful, and lend great interest to the narrative. 
 The style is neat, precise, perspicuous, and, when the author 
 chooses, marked by a high degree of elegance and beauty. So 
 well pleased are we with him, so successfully has he executed his 
 task, that we trust he may be induced to continue his labours. 
 In thus commending the work of Professor Rivers, we hope that 
 we will not be charged with any design to depreciate the efforts 
 of those who have preceded him in the same historical field, and 
 especially of the authors of our own day and generation. We are 
 very far from it. Simms, in writing his History, only aspired to 
 write a book for schools, and in this he has succeeded well. We 
 must also express our thanks to him for his series of historical 
 novels, in which, like Scott, he has perpetuated the most stirring 
 events of his country. These have charms for all, and especially 
 for the young, in whose bosoms they enkindle a feeling of high 
 admiration for the men who lived 'in the times that tried men's 
 souls.' But the truths of history are there blended with the cre- 
 ations of the imagination. In that department he is without a 
 rival, and enjoys an undisputed sovereignty. The design, of our 
 author was very different; he was more ambitious, had a higher 
 historical mark, and they cannot, therefore, be justly compai-ed. 
 Carroll, in his Collections, was very modest ; but he has given us 
 a work of real value, which is highly creditable to his industry and 
 ability. Nor do we pass by Gibbes's Documentary History, the 
 least pretending of all, but yet not without its worth. Our com- 
 plete history is yet to be written, and we envy not the patriotism 
 of the man who will withhold the commendation so justly due to 
 all who attempt to illustrate or to perfect it." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 483 
 
 MRS. WILLIAM C. RIVES. 
 
 I am not aware that Mrs. Rives has appeared as an autlior 
 except in her pleasantly written and highly instructive work 
 entitled Tales and Souvenirs of a Residence in Europe, published 
 in 1842, through a publishing house of Philadelphia. Her 
 husband's diplomatic relations gave Mrs. Rives the amplest 
 facilities for direct observation of European society in its best 
 phases. 
 
 STUART ROBINSON, D.D. 
 
 Dr. Robinson, a man of rare attainments, is a native of 
 Ireland. He is at this time Pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and editor of The Free Christian 
 Commonwealth, a sectarian sheet. He came to America when 
 young, and received his education principally in Virginia. He 
 has written the following works : — 
 
 1. The Church of God. 
 
 2. Slavery and the Mosaic Law. 
 
 3. Discourses of Redemption. 
 
 W. S. ROCKWELL. 
 
 In Masonic literature the Hand-book of Masonry of Mr. 
 Rockwell of Georgia appears to be one of the fullest and most 
 exhaustive works we have on that branch of the art or craft. 
 
484 LIVIMG WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 LEONIDAS ROSSER, D.D. 
 
 .',!'■'' - ■ 
 
 Dr. RossER occupies a favourable position among the practical 
 writers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He has written : — 
 
 1. Regeneratiort. Duodecimo. 
 
 2. Bapiisfn: Its Nature^ Obligation, Mode, Subjects and Bene- 
 fits. Duodecimo. 
 
 3. Open Communion. Duodecimo. 
 
 4. Recognition in ffeaven. Duodecimo. 
 
 ADRIAN ROUQUETTE. 
 
 Southern literature has the peculiaxity of being bilinguous; 
 and is like our civilization, Anglican and Gallican. The latter 
 element, both in civilization and literature, finds its greatest 
 development in Louisiana. Among the Creole and French 
 names that have honoured our literature, these are prominent : 
 Charles E. Arthyr Gayarre, the historian of that state ; and the 
 poets Tullius St. Cyran, Adrian Rouquette, Francois Dominique 
 Rouquette, and Charles Oscar Dugul. Among these poets, 
 M. I'AbbS Adrian Rouquette deserves the first mention, not 
 only on account of his being the most voluminous, but also on 
 account of the fervour and feeling he has thrown into all that 
 he has written. 
 
 M. I'AbbS Rouquette was born in New Orleans ; was educated 
 at the college of Nantes in France, 3,nd prepared for the practice 
 of law. He soon gave up the law to take ecclesiastical orders 
 in the Papal Church; and is now a, priest, attached,,! believe,' to 
 the Catholic Seminary of New Orleans as chaplain, although 
 resident at his retreat a few miles out of the city. 
 
 He is one of the few men who have written books in two 
 languages ; and one of the very few who have written well in both. 
 
 His pubUshed works are the following: — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF TOE SOUTH. 485 
 
 1. Les Savanes, Ponies Amiricaines. With this modest volume 
 our author, then a young man, made . his debut from pubUshing 
 houses both in Paris a,nd New Orleans in 1841. It was cordi- 
 ally received in France; and gave the author more notoriety 
 there than all his writings have ever done in America. Saint 
 Beuve, the Magnus Apollo of. French literary critics of that day, 
 wrote to the young author: " I have taken great pleasure in 
 breathing in your Savanes all sorts of perfumes full of youth and 
 freedom." ~ Auguste Erizeau^ the famous rural bard of grand old 
 Bretagne, thus salutes him: "You are the bard of Louisiana, 
 but France must claim> you a place among her poets."' The now- 
 venerable Auguste Barth61emy also spoke warm words of cheer 
 to our aspiring Creole. Some of his admirers, in their extrava- 
 gant French way, styled him the Lamartine of America, and his 
 pious friends of a kindred faith pai4 him their highest compli- 
 ment in hailing him the Lacordaire of Louisiana. It was not to 
 the honour of American discrimination nor of American taste 
 that she did so little honour to one whom la Belle JFrance -yi&s 
 greeting so cordially. 
 
 2. Fleurs Sauvages. A volume of sacred poems, appeared 
 in 1848, but added nothing to the Abb6's reputation as a poet. 
 Had there been even more poetic merit in the book than there 
 was, the adjective "sacred" {sacrees) applied to the poems 
 would have shut them off from all chance of success, by shutting 
 off readers. "Sacred" is a damper that few books of poems 
 can ever survive. 
 
 3. La TMbdide enAmerique, ou Apologie de la Vie .Solitaire et 
 Contemplative, appeared in 1851. It is a brochure in prose, as 
 •pedantic as the Anatomy of Melancholy, and loaded with ex- 
 tended quotations. The title explains the scope of the work. 
 The author appears to have exhausted the stores of ecclesiastical 
 history to maintain his thesis — we cannot say his theory — of 
 monasticism ; urging the beauty and force of such examples as 
 EHas and Elisha, the desert-crying John the Baptist, Saint John 
 of lonely Patmos, Saint John the , Anchorite, Saint Anthony of 
 
 41* 
 
486 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 many temptations, Hilarion with his self-imposed penance, 
 Jerome the voluminous, Chrysostomos the eloquent, Saint 
 Simeon Stylites with his haughty humility, Saint Augustine, Basil 
 the Great, and Cyprian — these of ancient and medieval days — 
 and quotes of later times such names as Picas Mirandola, F6ng- 
 lon, Petrarcha, Lacordaire, the Abb6 Raiice, and many minor 
 lights of his own peculiar faith. All this is very learned and 
 very dull ; very pointless to one who does not believe beforehand 
 in monachism, but very beautiful and impressive to one who 
 does. This little volume, though written in prose, is in a high 
 degree poetical in its fervid French declamation; far more 
 poetical than his sacred poems mentioned above. One is some- 
 times reminded of Chateaubriand and his fervent poetical 
 rhapsodies, here, in this quiet but florid httle book. .. It is very 
 French — plus Francis qiien France, one feels tempted to 
 say. It seems to be the author's pet. 
 
 4. U Antoniade, ou la Solitude avec Dieu; Pohme Erimitique. 
 This volume was announced in 1859. 
 
 5. Le Conciliabule Infernal. This was announced in i860. 
 
 6. Poemes Patriotiques. This volume was announced with the 
 one just mentioned, in July, i860, as then forthcoming. 
 
 In this country probably the best known and the best appre- 
 ciated of our author's poems in French is one in Les Savanes, 
 entitled Souvenir de Kentucky. This is an earnest poem, often 
 forcible, tinged sometimes with extravagance and, touched here 
 and there with the awe of soUtude. Indeed, this solitude, this 
 veritable passion of loneliness, pervades in some way or other 
 almost everything that M. rAbb6 Rouquette has ever written. 
 He is himself the genius of solitude. In tliis Souvenir de 
 Kentucky, ior example, when he states the grandeur and gloom 
 of the Bloody Land (la terre de sang), he concludes by averring 
 that man must involuntarily kneel amid that grandeur and 
 gloom — 
 
 et, Chretien sans dtude 
 II retrouve, Itonn^, Dieu dans la solitude 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 487 
 
 We are reminded here that Chateaubriand, whom some have 
 regarded as the Abb6's great exemplar, has somewhere said: 
 "Les ^ar>ds passions sont sohtaires." The Abb6 lived that 
 idea. The Abb6 Ranee has given it a fuller expression in say- 
 ing : " La pri^re est soeur de la poSsie, I'ermitage est voisin du 
 Pamasse, I'anachorWe est I'ami du barde enthousiaste." Our 
 poet has taken to himself the ideal of his master : — 
 
 Remote from man, with God he passed his days, — 
 
 in his retreat at Bayou Lacombe, enjoying, as far as his engage- 
 ments of a professional nature would permit, what Motherwell 
 calls "the luxury of solitude.'' 
 
 The following expressions from our author's own account of 
 his vacation pursuits and inspirations, are in every respect 
 characteristic and striking. He says : — 
 
 " In that flowery and sunny month [May], I at last retired to 
 Bayou Lacombe, my Thebais, the land of my mother and my 
 boyhood's land, my shelter and my nook : I fled from the tumul- 
 tuous city, there to roam amid balmy shrubs and odoriferous 
 flowers, in the lonely evergreen, and harmonious groves of aged 
 oaks, dark cedars, and lofty pines ; and it was there, during the 
 lingering hours of twilight, while the mystic and mellowing hues 
 of the sky were blending in slow-coming darkness, there it was 
 that I felt the mysterious working of a poetical rapture, and was 
 
 visited by the wild and swajdng messenger I wrote 
 
 because I could not do otherwise ; and my thoughts and feelings 
 gushed forth and flowed like a stream of living waters winding 
 through the desert. . . . . Then only, by that sudden 
 burst, by that unconti-olled and poetical effusion, then only was 
 my heart relieved of its oppressive sadness, my soul roused up 
 and revived in- its divine spirit of faith, of hope, of love; of 
 study, prayer and endiusiasm." 
 
 Nobody in the world but a poet — a French poet — a Cathohc 
 Frenchman — could have written that. It is full of character. 
 
488 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 It is just M. I'AbbS Rouquette himself. We need no better 
 pourtraiture. 
 
 In a small volume entitled Esquisses Locales, understood to 
 have been written by M. Cyprien Dufour of New Orleans, 
 I find the following mention of the style and personnel of M. 
 I'AbbS Rouquette : " Ce ph6nom6ne de son talent prete par 
 momens un charme inexprimable A sa parole ; sa phrase se 
 baigne dans des flots de po6sie et en sort presque avec les cou- 
 leurs de I'^loquence. Mais cette Eloquence, je puis la comparer 
 un peu a la terre de la Louisiane — si elle a ses champs fertiles, 
 ses plaines opulentes, elle a aussi ses prairies tremblantes oii le 
 pied hisite et ne sait trop oii il est. C'est une Eloquence sans 
 experience, peut4tre sans art ; mais elle ne manque pas d'au- 
 dace, et c'est IS, son salut. Plus tard, quand le geste sera plus 
 sur, la voix mieux dirigfe, quand les synthases, parfois plus spS- 
 cieuses que sohdes, auront laiss6 un peu de place eI la simpUcitS 
 de I'analyse, quand I'auditoire verra plus clistinctement oii veut 
 aller I'orateur, I'^glise aura fait une belle conqu^te et notre pays 
 aura une illustration de plus. La conversation de M. Rouquette 
 est persuasive, attachante. II a peut-^tre trop v6cu en dehors 
 du monde pour en connaatre toutes les exigences, mais le gout 
 et le tact sont innis chez lui. Sa jeunesse, sa douceur, sa 
 tolerance, rappellent involontairement cette suave figure de 
 Gabriel que Sue a tracde avec tant de bonheur dans son Juif, 
 Errant. Les prSceptes fivangeliques n'auront jamais de moni- 
 teur plus aimable.'' 
 
 This was written, however, twenty years ago. 
 
 His Poite Miconnu and Le Erisentiment are also favourable 
 specimens of his lyrics in French. For the English readers I 
 quote a lyric in that language from the Wild Flowers. It 
 may be a fair specimen of that volume, but is hardly such of the 
 poems of the author, whose gems are in French. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 48.9 
 
 TO NATURE, MY MOTHER. 
 
 O Nature, powerful, smiling, calm. 
 
 To my unquiet heart. 
 Thy peace distiHing aa a balm, 
 
 Thy mighty life impart. 
 
 Nature, mother, still the Same, 
 So lovely mild with me. 
 
 To live in peace, unsung by fame. 
 Unchanged I come to thee ; 
 
 1 come to live as saints have lived, 
 I fly where they have fled, 
 
 By men unholy never grieved. 
 In prayer my tears to shed. 
 
 Alone with thee, from cities far. 
 
 Dissolved each earthly tie ; 
 By some divine magnetic star 
 
 Attracted still on high. 
 
 Oh ! that my heart, inhaling love 
 
 And life with ecstacy. 
 From this low world to worlds above 
 
 Could rise exultingly ! 
 
 That is earnest enough for Chateaubriand or Lamennais, pious 
 enough for Hannah More, and plain enough for Mary Howitt ; 
 but withal it is v6ry like the Abb6 Rouquette. 
 
 M. I'Abbi Rouquette is of slender person, having a high, 
 narrow head. The phrenologists would say of his head that his 
 selfish propensities and passions are very small, while his moral 
 sentiments and reflective intellect are large. His veneration, 
 spirituality, conscientiousness, hope, and ideality are all very 
 large. His religious fervour comes of these faculties ; while the 
 almost absence of earthly passions makes his abnegation of 
 society and of the world in general no very heavy yoke. 
 
 His chirograph indicates perseverance, preciseness, and a little 
 display; and is nervous, somewhat scratchy, and wanting in 
 force. 
 
49° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 FRANCOIS DOMINIQUE ROUQUETTE. 
 
 Among our Franco-American litterateurs — embracing such 
 names as Oscar Dugu6, Charles Gayarrg, M. Chaudron, and the 
 Rouquettes— the subject of our sketch deserves favourable 
 mention. There are two Rouquettes, — the brothers Adrian, 
 noticed above, and Frangois, whose name stands at the head of 
 the present sketch. 
 
 He was bom in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Tuesday, the 2d 
 of January, 18 10; and, like his brotlier, was educated at the 
 College of Nantes, France. 
 
 His works are : — 
 
 1. Les Meschacibeennes. A collection of poems in French. 
 
 2. Fleurs d Amirique. A collection of poems in French upon 
 American themes. This book is the mainstay of the author's 
 reputation as a poet. It was pubhshed in Paris, and produced 
 an impression greater, of course, upon the French reading-public 
 than upon the American, from the simple fact that it was not 
 read at all in America. Very few French books, of course I 
 mean comparatively, are read in America. The reflex repu- 
 tation oi Les Fleurs ^'Amirique, however, . gave the author 
 considerable notoriety. Mery wrote in favourable tenns of the 
 book ; and M6ry was himself a pet in France.' Eugene Guinot 
 — as well known by his pseudonyme, Pierre Durand — speaking 
 of this American poetry, says : " It is true and good poetry, which 
 merits well the name ; sweet and fresh flowers from America 
 opened under a beautiful sun, rare and fragrant;" and the 
 great editor of Le Fays is a voice that France is accustomed to 
 listen to. Emile Deschamps, writing to our author, under date 
 of Versailles, 13th April, 1859, ^^7^ '■ " Your Fleurs d'Am&rique 
 have all the grace, all the perfume, all the freshness, of their pro- 
 totypes ; " and le Jeune Moraliste is himself a great poet and 
 one that Paris has done much to honour. 
 
 In 1858 M. Rouquette was said to be engaged upon a work, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. ^91 
 
 of which I have heard nothing save the French announcement 
 that styles it un ouvrage historique, en FranQois et en Englais, sur 
 la nation Indienne des Choctaws. 
 
 M. Rouquette is, I believe, a resident of his native city, but 
 spends much of his time in France. 
 
 ABRAM J. RYAN. 
 
 The author of The Conquered Banner is a native of Vir- 
 ginia, and was born in the year 1840. His education was 
 conducted principally at St. Mary's College, Missouri, and 
 was finished with honours. He was until recently Pastor of a 
 Roman Catholic church of Knoxville, Tennessee. He was an 
 ardent and unfaltering adherent of the Confederate cause during 
 the war ; and since the war has laboured much in lecturing for 
 the benefit of the maimed soldiers and orphans of the South. 
 He writes occasionally for General Hill's Land We Love, mostly 
 in verse. During the spring of 1868 he undertook the editorial 
 control of a Democratic newspaper in Augusta, Georgia, called 
 The Banner of the South, where he now is. His nom de plume 
 is Moina; which, however, had been previously used by Mrs. 
 Dinnies of New Orieans. 
 
 The Conquered Banner may fairly take its place at the top of 
 the list of the several exquisite wails that have gone up in verse- 
 utterance- from the crushed hearts of a conquered people for a 
 lost cause. I give the poem entire, without further comment : — 
 
 Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary ; 
 Rouild its staff 'tis drooping dreary ; 
 
 Furl it, fold it, it is best : 
 For there's not a man to wave it, 
 And there's not a sword to save it. 
 And there's not one left to lave it 
 In the blood which heroes ga:ve it, 
 And its foes now scorn and brave it ; 
 
 Furl it, hide it — let it rest. 
 
492 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Take that Banner down, 'tis tattered ! 
 Broken is its staff and shattered 1 
 And the valiant hosts are scattered. 
 
 Over whom it floated high. 
 Oh ! 'tis hard for us to foM it ! 
 Hard to think there's none to hold it ; 
 Hard that those who once unrolled it 
 
 Now must fori it with a sigh. 
 
 Furl that Banner — furl ft sadly^ 
 Once ten thousands hailed it gladly. 
 And ten thousands wildly, madly. 
 
 Swore it should forever wave — 
 Swbre that foeman's sword should never 
 Hearts like theirs entwined dissever 
 Till that flag should float forever 
 
 O'er their freedom or their grave I 
 
 Furl it 1 for the hands that grasped it. 
 And the hearts that fondly clasped it. 
 
 Cold and dead are lying low ; 
 And that Banner — it is trailing ! 
 While around it sounds the wailing 
 
 Of its people in their woe, 
 
 For, though conquered, they adore it ! 
 Love the cold, dead hands that bore it I 
 Weep for those who fell before it 1 
 Pardon those who trailed and tore it ! 
 But, oh ! wildly they deplore it. 
 Now, who furl and fold it so. 
 
 Furl that Banner ! true 'tis gory, 
 ' Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory. 
 
 And 'twiU live in song and story 
 
 Though its folds are in the dust : 
 For its fame on brightest pages. 
 Penned by poets and by sages. 
 Shall go sounding down the ages.^ 
 
 Furl its folds though now we must. 
 
UVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 493 
 
 Furl that Banner, softly, slowly j 
 Treat it gently — it is holy. 
 
 For it droops above the dead. 
 Touch it not — unfold it never — 
 Let it droop there, furled forever. 
 
 For its" people's hopes are dead ! " 
 
 Sentinel Songs breathes, the same spirit, as does, however, every- 
 thing that emanates frorh the same pen. This wants some of 
 the fire of the former, but its truthfulness and earnestness are 
 unmistakable. I quote entire :— - 
 
 When sinks the soldier brave 
 
 De^ at the feet of Wrong, 
 The poet sings, and guards his grave 
 
 With Sentinels of Song. 
 
 " Go, Songs !" he gives conunand, 
 
 "Keep faithful watch and true; 
 The living and dead of the Conquered Land 
 
 Have now no guards save you. 
 
 " And, BaUads ! mark ye well. 
 
 Thrice holy is your trust ; 
 Go out to the field where warriors fell 
 
 And sentinel their dust." 
 
 And the Songs, in stately rhyme. 
 
 With softly-sounding tread, 
 March forth to watch till the end of time 
 
 Beside the silent dead. 
 
 And when the foeman's host 
 
 And hate have passed away. 
 Our guard of Soiigs shall keep their post 
 
 Around our soldiers' clay. 
 
 A thousand dawns may glow, 
 
 A thousand days may wane. 
 The deathless Songs, where the dead lie low. 
 
 True to the last, remain. 
 42 
 
494 LIVING WAITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Yes, true ! They will not yield 
 
 To tyrants or to time, 
 At ev'ry grave and on ev'ry field 
 
 Where men died deaths sublime. 
 
 Lone vigils they will keep, 
 
 Obedient to their Bard ; 
 And they will watch when we shall sleep — 
 
 Our last and only Guard. 
 
 Ah ! let the tyrant curse 
 
 The dead he tramples down ! 
 Our strong, brave Songs, in their sweet, sad verse. 
 
 Fear not the tyrant's frown. 
 
 What though no sculptured shaft 
 
 Commemorate our Brave ? 
 What though no monument, epitaphed, 
 
 Be built above their grave ? 
 
 When marble wears away 
 
 And monuments are dust. 
 The Songs that guard our soldiers' clay 
 
 Will still fulfil their trust ! 
 
 All the poems I have seen from Father Ryan's pen are 
 pitched on the same key. The greatest favourites, after those I 
 have mentioned, are, Ttie Sword of Robert Lee, Prayer for 
 the South, The Land We Love, Our Day, and some Lines written 
 for the Memorial Association of Fredericksburg, Va. They all 
 breathe the same spirit, and the same fire flashes through all. 
 
 I have never met Father Ryan ; and must depend upon 
 others for matters pertaining to his personnel. The editor of 
 the Memphis Avalanche gives us this pen-and-ink sketch of 
 him : — 
 
 " Father Ryan is a man of about thirty years of age, five feet 
 seven inches in height ; is spare made, of fragile form and ap- 
 pearance ; his shoulders are slightly stooped and indicate a 
 habit of leaning over books. His movements are rather quiet, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 49S 
 
 but indicate much firmness and decision. His easy manner ex- 
 hibits a perfect confidence and strengtli of character. When he 
 appears before his people, the most listless observer arouses to 
 a sense that a most extraordinary man is before liim. 
 
 "His impressive appearance consists of a. beautiful expression 
 of countenance, that is not dependent on 'outline for its cast, 
 but rather on the intellectual light that shines from his eyes and 
 radiates over his countenance. His face is long and beardless ; 
 his hair is brown, and worn cast back from his high, broad fore- 
 head, and hangs in slight, gracefiil curls over his shoulders ; his 
 eyes are soft and blue, mild in repose, and glow beautifully when 
 he is aroused or eloquent ; his brows are high and regularly arched- 
 The eyes often droop, and seem to fall with a violent light radi- 
 ating from them. His mouth has a slight curvature at the corners, 
 is small and of pleasing appearance ; his lips are moJ)ile, and 
 carry on tlieir well-moulded surface a constantly varying smile 
 that has much of that compassion that beams kindly from his 
 eyes and face. His angular cheek bones are scarcely noticeable 
 in a front view. 
 
 " His general appearance, as he stands in the chancel, is very 
 feminine, yet giving the impression that he is an intellectual and 
 poetical person of noble and good qualities. His manner, and par- 
 ticularly his distinct tenor tones, indicate an unusually powerful 
 and impressive voice. His utterances often reach a high key, 
 but tliey are musically modulated and very pleasing to- the ear. 
 His thrilling sentences flow rhythmically, like poetry, and are 
 not only exquisitely pleasing, but convincing in every respect. 
 Short currents of eloquent words flow from him easily and with- 
 out labour. No unkindly references ever grate on the ear of 
 his varied listeners. Kindly and calmly he tells the beauties of 
 the Church ; firmly he asks for faith firom his hearers, and with- 
 out bigotry, he demands devotion and Christian practice from 
 its members." 
 
45)6 tlVIKG WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT SASS. 
 
 Among the war poems that appeared in the South during 
 the war A Prayer , for Peace, by Mr. Sass, a young poet of 
 Charleston, South Carolina, was received with much favour. 
 Another poem under the same title, commencing, — 
 
 Peace ! Peace ! God of our fathers, grant us peace 1 — 
 
 appeared about die same date — 1864, I believe it was — 
 from the pen of S. Teackle Wallis. 
 I give Mr. Sass's poem entire : — 
 
 Look forth, look forth from the pale hills of Time 
 
 Which, deepening in the distance, rise and' swell 
 In shadowy surges to the great Sublime. 
 
 Look forth from those grey heights, look forth, and teU 
 If the Deliverer comes ! Long have we striven 
 
 And toiled, and waited — darker to our ^ew 
 Grows the horizon of yon lowering heaven. 
 
 And the chill blasts blow menacingly throu^ ; 
 Closer the shado-ws crouch around our path — 
 The billowy st;orm-clouds of impending wrath. 
 
 Look forth, pale Sentry of the Eastern hills. 
 
 Wan with long watching, gaunt with vigil sore ; 
 Speak the wild thought which through my b6som thrills. 
 
 Comes the Good Master never, never more ? 
 Hath He forgot His people in their woes ? 
 
 Is the Great Ruler impotent to save? 
 Are these sharp pangs but Life's expiring throes. 
 
 And tend our blood-stained footsteps to the grave 7 
 When comes of all our ills the blest surcease ? 
 Where loitereth, prison-bound, sweet-featured Peace ? . 
 
 For two long years the wine-press have we trodden. 
 
 Sure Thou wilt hearken as we turn to Thee, 
 Lifting our bridal-robes, all stained and sodden 
 
 With the red tears of wounded Purity ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF^ THE SOUTH. 497 
 
 Sure Thou wilt bare Thine arm's avenging might, 
 
 Till in Thy glorious kingdom upon earth 
 We stand a nation of the nations, bright 
 
 In all ^he grandeur of heroic birth, 
 Clad in the purple, yet with mourning weeds, 
 The proud heart throbbing, even while it bleeds. 
 
 Ah, yes ! triumphant still, though stricken sore — 
 
 Like some fair barque, whose prow hath wooed the wave 
 Which leaps in maddening surges on the shore. 
 
 Where foam-crowued eddies lure her to her grave, — 
 Yet still hath borne her proudly on her way, 
 
 Though tempests rage, and billows roar and swell, 
 Into the haven of eternal day 
 
 Hath passed, and is at rest, and all is well ! 
 Ay, even though the lordly mast hath bowed. 
 And the breeze murmurs through a storm-reflt shroud. 
 
 With wistful glance the dying western sun 
 
 Looks down upon a lone and peaceful graye ;, 
 Full lovingly the shadows, pale and dun, ' -'I • 
 
 Guard the last, home of him who died to save 
 His fair fame from foul slander's blighting breath — 
 
 His country, from the foe's polluting tread ; 
 Bright smiling in the phantom drms of death. 
 
 With no vain sigh or throb of craven dread, ' 
 Where weeps the wave of that calm western rivo:, 
 Fell the true knight, a hero now foreven 
 
 Once more the shadows darken through the land ; 
 
 Once more goes forth that wild, despairing cry ; 
 The bright blade f«illeth from the nerveless hand, 
 
 The light of battl%ladc!th from the eye 1 ; 
 A moan of woe in Shenandoah's vale ; 
 
 One quick, short sigh on Rappaliannock's shbre. 
 And then outswelleth proudly on the gale 
 
 The grand old shout, the battle-cry of yore ! 
 Still Jacksoni's name the foremost charge hath led. 
 Still Jackson's war-cry thunders at their head ! 
 
 Yes, all unshaken i§ the patient trust. 
 
 The steadfast heart, the galm, jindaunted will, 
 42* 
 
49? LIVING WRITERS OF. THE SOUTH. 
 
 And now we lift us to Thee from the dust 
 
 Of penitence, and pray that Thou wilt still 
 The raging of the waters, till the calm 
 
 Of peace shall brood upon the troubled deq>, 
 And the soft billows, murmuring a psalm 
 
 Of lov.e and glory, gently charm to sleep 
 The storm-tossed mariner, soft as the chime 
 Of distant home bells in a fairy clime. 
 
 And so, as some rich-freighted Argosie 
 
 Which glides in swan-like grandeur o'er the main 
 While all the treasures of a tropic sea 
 
 Flash round her prow and glitter in her train. 
 In triumph o'er the waves our Ship of State 
 
 Shall proudly ride, while yet the soft breeze fills 
 Her sails, until at last the crystal gate. 
 
 Deep-bosomed 'mid the Everlasting Hills, 
 Shall open to her prow, her wanderings cease, 
 And o'er her decks shall brood love-crowned Peace 
 
 Mr. Sass took the prize offered during the war by TTie South- 
 ern Field and Fireside for the best poem. 
 
 Among the poems of Mr. Sass not yet published, I present 
 Far as representative of his latest muse-work : — 
 
 Far around — the long hush of the summer ; 
 
 The swell of the breezes of mom ; 
 The infinite, echoless murmur 
 
 From the low fields of shadowy corn ; 
 Blue reaches of sea through the elm-boughs; ' 
 
 Red light on the crests of the trees. 
 
 As the dim east lifts slumbrous eyelids; 
 
 Far around— only these. 
 
 Far away — a dim mystical vapour. 
 
 Drawn down o'er the grave of the moon; 
 
 A light cloud whose bosom is shaken 
 With the sighs of the wakening June; 
 
 A white sail adown the horizon. 
 
 Sinking slow with the last fading star ; 
 
 A sweep of the billows between us 
 , Far away — ah, how far ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 499 
 
 Far down — a dear head calm and peaceful ; 
 
 Fsir down a sweet face, passion-pale ; 
 And the daisies in beauty above it, 
 
 Soft-wooed by the soft summer gale ; 
 A hope, and a love, and a life-throb. 
 
 Folded close to the Great Mother's breast. 
 And kissed into slumber forever ; 
 Far down, there is rest. 
 
 Far up — a great glory of living ! 
 
 A door in the' fathomless blue ! 
 A sweet voice, on earth hushed forever ; 
 
 Dear eyes, darkened here, shming through. 
 Far up — the great raptiure of Heaven ! 
 
 Far down — a soul's joyful release ! 
 Far around, far away, here and ever, 
 God's infinite Peace ! 
 
 Mr. Sass continues to write occasionally; but with the with- 
 drawal of the excitement of war and a suffering country, he has 
 abated his interest in the intense utterances of song. 
 
 He has been engaged in mercantile or commercial pursuits, 
 and is just now entering upon the practice of law. 
 
 His chirograph is clerkly, and indicates directness of mind and 
 a fondness for display. 
 
 He is, I judge, about twenty-three or four years old; and his 
 youth leaves grounds for the hope that he may yet do efficient 
 work in the field of letters. 
 
 JOHN SCOTT. 
 
 During the year 1867 there appeared an illustrated octavo, 
 entitled Partisan Life with Mosby, by Major John Scott of 
 Fauquier, Virginia, late C. S. A. It was published by sub- 
 scription only. 
 
 I have never seen the book, but have seen many complaints 
 of its faults. The author, according to the reviewers, creates 
 
5QO LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 some of his characters de novo ; and gives exploits, conversa- 
 tions, and opinions to these fictitious personages, as if it were 
 all history. A writer, who appears to have been of Mosb/s 
 command, thus speaks of the work: — 
 
 "It was hoped that when the author was entrusted, by his 
 own request, with the responsibility of furnishing the public a 
 correct exposition of the character and achievements of an orga- 
 nization which had hitherto been shrouded with so much mys- 
 tery, that he would give to the world a history that could be 
 credited by strangers, and prized as a souvenir by those who 
 had participated in the exploits to be recorded The advan- 
 tages afforded Major Scott for doing this were great, and it is 
 not my purpose in this article to question the correctness of 
 his descriptions of Mosb/s encounters with the enemy. But 
 no matter how vividly he may have presented to the reader 
 those brilliant exploits, the objects for which he represents the 
 Partisan as fighting, and the character he gives the men them- 
 selves, will destroy all interest which might have been felt in 
 their successes. Had his object been to gratify tlie most bitter 
 enemies of partisan warfare by producing, a work wliich should 
 confonn to their prejudices, he could not have been more suc- 
 cessful; for he has represented Mosb/s command as a reckless 
 band of 'conglomerates,' fighting entirely for plunder, and with 
 no respect for religion." 
 
 These are heavy charges ; but from the quotations made, the 
 reviewer appears to make out his case very fully. There are 
 several other objections urged against the work, but it is not 
 necessary, in a literary view, to push a consideration of them 
 any farther. I am not aware that Major Scott has written any 
 other JDOoks. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 501 
 
 VICTOR SKJOUR. 
 
 According to the Baptismal Registry in New Orleans, M. 
 Victor S6jour was bom in that city on the i2tli of June, 1809; 
 although M. Vapereau, in his Dictionndire Universel dei Contem- 
 f Grains, states that he was born in Paris towards the end of 
 1816 — «g a Paris, vers la fin de 1816. 
 
 He made his dibut in liteirature in 1841 by an ode upon The 
 Return of Napoleon, but has acquired his main distinction as 
 a dramatist, actor, and dramatic writer. His principal works 
 are : — 
 
 1. Retour de Napoleon'. Published in octavo. 1841. 
 
 2. Diigarias. A five-act drama in verse ; 1844. It was pro- 
 duced at the Theatre Frangais, Paris, the same year. 
 
 3. La Chute de Sifati. ' Also a five-act drama, produced in 
 1849 ^t the same theatre. 
 
 4. Richard IIL A five-act prose drama, produced at the 
 Porte Saint Martin in 1852 ; written for the actor Ligier. 
 
 5. L ^Argent du Diable. A piece in three acts, produced at 
 Vari6t6s in 1854. 
 
 6. Les Noces Vihitiennes. A five-act drama. 1855. 
 T. Le Fils dela Nuit, — five-act. 1857. 
 
 8. Andri Gerard. A five-act drama, produced at the Od6on 
 as the farewell representation of M. Fr6d6ric Lemaitre, in 1857. 
 
 9. Ze Martyr du Cceur. A five-act drama, written in conjunc- 
 tion with M. Br&il in 1858. 
 
 Since that time M. S6jour has continued his labours ; but I 
 have not a list of his more recent works. He sojourns- — a 
 French actor can hardly be said to reside or Uve- — in Paris 
 rather than in his native city ; though his friends in New Orleans 
 consider him an American and a Southern autlidr. He is, I am 
 informed, a quadroon. He writes only in the French language. 
 
S02 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 RAPHAEL SEMMES. 
 
 The story of the hero of the Sumter and the Alabama 
 belongs ratlier to the history of the war than to that of contem- 
 porary Uterature. His book, however, is a part of the matter 
 before us. 
 
 Admiral Semmes is a native of Maryland, and was born about 
 1810. In 1828 he was appointed a midshipman on board the 
 Lexington; and by the year 1855 reached the rank of com- 
 mander. In 1858 he was appointed secretary to tlie Lighthouse 
 Board; and the commencement of the war found him in that 
 position. In March, 1861, he entered the Confederate service; 
 and was at once appointed commander, and assigned to service 
 in charge of the steamer Sumter. After the brief but briUiant 
 career of that vessel, which he sold at Gibraltar, he was assigned 
 to the command of the 290, to which he gave the name of 
 Alabama. As commander of that vessel he rivalled the exploits 
 of the famous Paul Jones of the American Revolution. The Ala- 
 bama was finally sunk in the British Channel, nine miles firom 
 Cherbourg, by the Federal frigate Kearsarge. In reference to 
 this affair, I heard Admiral Semmes, in January, 1865, in a 
 speech delivered within the Confederacy, say that he exulted in 
 the fact that no foot of the foe ever polluted his decks ; that, as 
 he had christened the Alabama, he also buried her; that the 
 victor off' Cherbourg captured not a splinter of her smallest spar, 
 nor a shred of her flag ; that he buried her in EngKsh waters, 
 side by side with the old ships and the old flags of Old England, 
 safe from the reach and the insult of an overreaching foe. 
 
 In person Admiral Semmes is rather more distingu^\(y<^va% 
 than handsome. He is about five feet ten, wears a moustache 
 and imperial ; has a complexion touched by the suns of many 
 cUmes ; and his nose is noticeably long and large. 
 
 He has been for the greater part of the time since the war, and 
 I believe now is, editor of a daily newspaper in Memphis, Ten- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 503 
 
 nessee, and has lectured with some success in the Southwest 
 upon his cruisings. 
 
 In 1864 there' appeared a small volume, in London and New 
 York simultaneously, entitled "The Cruise of the Alabama and the 
 Sumter, from the Private Journals and other papers of Com- 
 mander Raphael Semmes, C. S. N., and other officers." 
 
 Our author's own work appeared in 1868, under the title of 
 " Memoirs of Service Afloat in the Sumter and the Alabama, 
 during the War between the States, by Admiral Eaphael Semmes, 
 of the late Confederate States Navy." This is a royal octavo 
 volume of nearly 800 pages, illustrated with a steel engraving of 
 the author and fourteen engraved portraits of the officers of the 
 two vessels, besides half a dozen illustrations in chromo tints. 
 It was published in Baltimore. A Northern j ournal — The Round 
 Table of New York — after characterizing the extreme partisan 
 tone of the writer, adds : " When, however, he has his sailing 
 orders and gets on the blue water he is natural, easy, and graphic, 
 and the narrative is kept up with spirit and interest to the close." 
 And further : '■'■Au rests, it is fair to an author who makes fre- 
 quent sKps in scholarship, and who is too tru'stworthy a partisan 
 to see both sides of the shield, that we should acknowledge his 
 unusual descriptive powers, the closeness of his observation for 
 natural phenomena, and the fidelity with which he has studied and 
 brings forward for our instruction the minutise of his adventurous 
 profession. Were he to put his best force in the attempt, we 
 have little doubt Mr. Semmes could produce sea fiction that 
 woulddo no discredit to Cooper, Marryat, or Chamier.'' 
 
 Two works — 'Campaigns of General Scott irt the Valley of 
 Mexico, Cincinnati, 1852, i2mo.; a,n6. Service Afloat and Ashore 
 During the Mexican War, Cincinnati, 1851, 8vo., — appear un- 
 der the name of this author. 
 
S04 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. MARY S. B. DANA SHINDLER. 
 
 Miss Mary Stanly Bunce Palmer, a dat^hter of the Rev. 
 Dr. Benjamin M. Palmer of Beaiifort, South Carolina, was born 
 in that place in 1810. 
 
 When she was four years old the family removed to Charleston 
 where Dr. Palmer had been called to the pastorate of the Inde- 
 pendent Church. 
 
 Miss Palmer was educated at the school of the Misses Ramsey 
 in Charleston; at the Seminary of the Rev. Mr. Emerson at 
 Wethersfield in Connecticut ; at the Young Ladies' Seminary at 
 Elizabethtown, New Jersey ; and (not to be tedious with details) 
 at a seminary at New Haven in Connecticut. 
 
 As a school-girl she contributed to Mrs. Oilman's monthly 
 Rose-Bud. 
 
 In 1835 she became the wife of Mr. Charles E. Dana of New 
 York, and lived there with him three years. 
 
 In 1839 she was left a widow, and as a solace began to devote 
 herself regularly to literature. 
 
 In 1845 Mrs. Dana embraced the Unitarian faith. She pub- 
 lished Letters to Relatives and Friends, a good-sized volume, ex- 
 planatory of her change of religious views. 
 
 In 1848 she became the wife of the Rev. Robert D. Shindler, 
 an Episcopal preacher; joined her husband's church; and in 
 1850 they removed to Maryland, and afterwards to Shelbyville, 
 Kentucky, where I believe they now live, Mr. Shindler being a 
 professor in Shelby College. 
 
 Mrs. Shindler'spubHshed books are: — 
 
 I. Southern Harp, pubHshed in 1841, is a collection of her 
 sacred poems adapted to popular airs — airs like those Scotch 
 ones of which some one has said God made the tunes and the 
 Devil wrote the words. Mrs. Dana wrote sacred, not diabolical, 
 words for such popular tunes. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 505 
 
 2. Northern Har'h. The success of the preceding encouraged 
 the author to prepare this work, similar in character. 
 
 3. The Parted Family, and Other Poems. A volume of origi- 
 nal verses, which is said to have had a large sale. I shall give 
 a specimen below. 
 
 4. Charles Morton, or the Young Patriot. A story of the 
 Revolution of '76, appeared in 1843. 
 
 5. The Young Sailor. 
 
 6. Forecastle Tom. 
 
 7. Letters to Relatives and Friends. 1845. This is the work 
 mentioned above — the largest of her prose works — ^and ap- 
 peared the same year in London. It is her magnum opus, 
 though possibly now, with her altered views on theology, the 
 author may not choose to consider it so. 
 
 The following little poem is graceful and suggestive. ' It is en- 
 titled The Faded Flower and the Crushed Heart: — 
 
 I have seen a fragrant flower 
 
 All impearled with morning dew; 
 I have plucked it from the bower, 
 
 Where in loveliness it grew. 
 O, 'twas sweet, when gayly vying 
 
 With the garden's richest bloom ; 
 But when faded, withered, dying, 
 
 Sweeter far its choice perfume. 
 
 So the heart, when crushed by sorrow. 
 
 Sends its richest streams abroad, 
 Whilfe it learns sweet balm to borrow 
 
 From th' uplifted hand of God. 
 Not in its sunny days of gladness 
 
 Will the heart be fixed on Heaven ; 
 When 'tis wounded, clothed in sadness. 
 
 Oft its richest love is given. 
 
 This is, and claims to be, only a song, and a moral song at 
 that— two conditions rather ajgainst the purity of its poetry. 
 43 
 
So6 LIVING WRITERS OF I HE SOUTH. 
 
 BARNARD SHlPP. 
 
 The heroic verse as a form for didactic utterance has never 
 found favour to any great degree in our country. Many poems 
 have been written in it ; but I refer to men's making it the com- 
 mon form for their poems, as Pope and some of his contempo- 
 raries did. 
 
 In the South two of our poets have writtein in this verse almost 
 exclusively — Grayson, late of Charleston, who wrote The Hire- 
 ling and the Slave, llie Country, and Chicora; and Mr. Shipp, 
 the subject of this paper. 
 
 Mr. Shipp was born on the 30th of April, 1813, upon his 
 fathers plantation — The Elysian Fields — five ^liles north of 
 Natchez, Mississippi. His father, William Shipp, was a native 
 of Virginia, but for thirty years a merchant of Natchez. His 
 mother — «gi? Barnard — is a native of Mississippi. His teachers 
 were Rev. Benjamin O. Peers of Lexington, Kentucky, and 
 Professor John S. Hart of Philadelphia. 
 
 The first book of poems that he read was Pops' s translation of 
 the Iliad. This was at the age of twelve, and it made a great 
 and durable impression upon his mind. He is more indebted to 
 Pope for his poetical, form and alpo for his style of thought — 
 philosophy of life may better convey the idea — than to any 
 other author. 
 
 He is at present resident in Louisville, Kentucky. 
 
 His published works are two volumes of verse : — 
 
 I. Fame and Other Poems, was published in 1848. In this 
 volume the poems of greatest length are Fame, Fayette, and Cos- 
 mopolis. Speaking of Fame, a writer of that day, after mention- 
 ing that it was written "in the heroic couplet of Pope and 
 Dryden," says of it : — 
 
 "The reader in perusing it is reminded constantly of the for- 
 mer of these authors, not froni any identity of expressions or 
 thoughts, but from a certain similarity of manner, which is perhaps 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 507 
 
 the more noticeable from the fact that this peculiar style is now 
 so uncommon.'" 
 
 The following lines will serve to illustrate both the poem and 
 the poet : — 
 
 Deem not th^t man, unaided, e'er hath trod 
 O'er prostrate empires with an iron rod, 
 To chasten kingdoms and reform mankind, 
 Their morals darken .j^d degrade their mind; 
 Nor think the bolts at sinful nations hurled 
 Proclaim God's vengeance to a guilty world j 
 Approving Mercy points their destined course. 
 And wings their fury from her fountain source ; 
 Poor simple mortals, to their being blind, 
 
 , See not the. glory, nor the good designed. 
 But only wrath, and God's vindictive soul. 
 In fiery clouds and dreadful thunder roll. 
 What ! God the Father made this world so fair, 
 ' Produced mankind -for anguish and despair; 
 
 And feelings exquisite to mortals gave, . 
 To tr^ad the earth a demon or a., knave? . 
 
 Displayed yon glories o'er his humble head. 
 
 And in his paths the lights of science shed? 
 
 Disclosed the- realms for meaner beings born, 
 ; Yet placed him here all friendless and forlorn? 
 
 Could thy frail acts, poor feeble thing, offend. 
 
 Cause wrath divine in' vengeance to descend? 
 
 Could mercy infinite by thee be moved 
 
 (FroiO nature springing and by God beloved). 
 
 To curse the being that he inight have'left 
 
 Devoid of feeling, or of sense bereft, 
 
 Or perfect made to tread his courts above 
 
 In endless rapture and eternal love ? 
 
 For shame, such faith should ever fostering find; 
 
 To bow the spirit and debase mankind ! 
 
 Appal the souls of blinded millions bound 
 
 To drag existence grovelling on the ground. 
 
 With no fond hopes, no aspirations given, 
 
 "Outcasts of earth and reprobates of heaven." 
 
So8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 In the minor poems of this volume the author appears to far 
 less advantage, and makes one regret that he should have ever 
 attempted the amatory or the playful, when the didactiq and that 
 grave, is so incontestably his/orU. 
 
 2. The Progress of Freedom, and Other Poems, appeared in 
 1852, and is a voluiiie about the size of the preceding — near 
 two-hundred duodecimo pages. 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, LL.D.. 
 
 These are the works that Mr. Simms has written : — 
 
 1. Lyrical and other Poems. A dibut volume, written pre- 
 vious to the author's twentieth year, and published in Charles- 
 ton, 1827. 
 
 2. Early Lays. 1827. 
 
 3. The Vision of Cortes, Cain, and other Poems. 1829. 
 
 4. The Tricolor^ or Three Days of Blood in Paris. A cele- 
 bration in verse of the French Revolution of 1830, published 
 in that year. .^ 
 
 5. Atalantis: A Story of the Sea. A narrative poem of life 
 among the Nereids, of submarine magic, and human sympathy ; 
 published by the Harpers of New York in 1832. 
 
 6. Martin Faber: the Story of a Criminal. A striking fiction 
 of intense interest and power, published in New York in 1833. 
 
 7. The Book of My Lady. A milange; pubhshed in 1833. 
 
 8. The Cosmopolitan: an Occasional, No. i. An alternation 
 of tales and conversations ; the first of a series that never went 
 beyond No. i. 
 
 9. 77ie Partisan. 1835. 
 
 10. Mellichampe. 
 
 11. Katherine Walton, or the Rebel of Dorchester. This and 
 the two preceding constitute a trilogy, delineating life in South 
 Carolina, centralized in Charleston during the revolutionary 
 period; covering the varied fortunes of that soul-trying crisis, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. S09 
 
 including the parts taken by Marion, Sumter, Moultrie, Pickens, 
 Hayne, and Hprryw This is perhaps the author's most success- 
 ful series of pure fictions. 
 
 12. Southern Passages and' Futures. A volume of poems, 
 lyrical, sentimental, and descriptive, published in New York, 
 1839. 
 
 13. Donna Florida, a Tale. A narrative poem, conceived and 
 written under tlie influence oi Don/tmn^ the express aim being 
 a poem in the style of Byron's reckless heroic. It was dropped 
 in midway, and remains a fragment, which is not much to be 
 regretted. Pubhshed in Charleston, 1843. 
 
 14. Castle Dismal, or the Bachelor's Christmas. A domestic 
 legend ; a South Carolina ghost-story. 1844. 
 
 15. Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies. A collection 
 of sonnets. 
 
 16. Areytos, or Songs of the South. Miscellaneous poems, 
 published in 1846. 
 
 \1. Lays of the Palmetto. Lyrics and ballads commemora- 
 tive of the exploits of the Palmetto (South Carolina) regiments 
 in the Mexican war of 1848. 
 
 18. The Eye and the Wing. A collection of poems. New 
 Yprk; 1848. .^ 
 
 19. Poems Chiefly Imaginative. Another volume of miscel- 
 laneous verse. 
 
 20. The Cassique~of Acfobee, a Tale of Ashley River, with 
 other pieces, — the leader being a narrative poem, a legend of 
 Indian life and love in the lang-syne of aboriginal days; pub- 
 lished in New York, 1849. 
 
 21. The City of the Silent. A poem delivered by the author 
 at the consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, at Charleston, in 
 1850. ' 
 
 22. Norman Maurice, or the Man of the People. A drama of 
 the present day, dealing with current events and feelings; a 
 representation of every-day American life, political and social. 
 
 23. Michael Bonham, or the Fall of the Alamo. A drama, 
 
 43* 
 
5IO LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 romantifc and tragic as its title imports. This and, the preceding 
 were produced upon the stage in the North, with a fair measure 
 of success ; this being the more successful of the two. 
 
 24. Poems. Two duodecimo volumes of miscellaneous poems, 
 culled from several eariier volumes, with fresh- additions. These 
 were published by Redfield, in 1853. 
 
 25. The Kinsmeft, or the Slack Riders of the Congaree. A 
 spirited fiction of revolutionary life and times ; the scene, as 
 the name imports, being laid in the author's native state. This 
 novel was largely successful ; and several years after its appear- 
 ance was reproduced, under the title of The Scout, in a uniform 
 edition of the* author's novels. 
 
 26. The Sword and the Distaff. Like the preceding, this 
 was subset^uently reproduced under another title — Woodcraft, 
 or Hawks about the Dovecot. 
 
 2 7. Eutaw. Another war novel, including an account of the 
 celebrated battle known as Eutaw Springs, in South Carolina. 
 This, I believe, is the latest of Mr. Simms's revolutionary 
 tales. 
 
 28. Guy Rivers. A border tale of rough old times in Geor- 
 gia,' wherein the rough hand and the stout heart ruled the day. 
 
 29. Richard Hurdis, or the Avenger of Blood. A tale of 
 Alabama, 
 
 30. Border Beagles. A tale of Mississippi. 
 
 31. Beauchamp. A tale of Kentucky. 
 
 32. Helen Halsey, or the Swamp State of Conelachita. 
 
 33. The Golden Christmas : A Chronicle of St. JohrHs, Berkley. 
 
 34. The Yemassee. A romance of Carolina ; an Indian story, 
 historical, founded upon the conspiracy of the Yemassees to 
 massacre tlie whites in I7r5. The delineations of Indian char- 
 acter in this novel are classed among the best portraitures 
 of the Southern Indian on record. 
 
 35. Relay 0: A Story of the Goth. 
 
 ^b. Count Julian. A sequel to /V/(7j/(7. This brace of fictions 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 511 
 
 deals with the Saracenic invasion of Spain, the dark fate of 
 Roderick, and the treachery of JuUan. 
 
 37. The Damsel of Darien. A story of the discoverer of the 
 Pacific, the celebrated Vasco Nunez de Balboa. 
 
 38. The Lily and the- Totem. A story of the Huguenots in 
 Florida. 
 
 39. Vasconcelos. In which we find the story of De Soto in 
 Florida. This novel was published under the nam de plume of 
 Frank Cooper ; a device to determine, it is said, how much the 
 immense popularity of the author's wbrks depended upon his 
 name. The book was a success without the adventitious aid 
 of an already famous name. * 
 
 40. Carl Werner. A novel in the style of Martin Faber, re- 
 turning to inner life. 
 
 41. Confession of the Blind Heart. 
 
 42. The Wigwam and the Cabin. 
 
 43. Marie de Berniere. A tale of the Crescent City. 
 
 44. History of South Carolina. 
 
 /^e^. South Carolina in the Revolution: A critical and argu- 
 mentative work, corrective of certain errors and oversights in 
 history. 
 
 46. Geography of South Carolina. This work was prepared, 
 as also was the history of the state, as an aid in the education 
 of the author's daughter^ 
 
 47. Life of Francis Marion. A biography as fascinating and 
 attractive as a fiction. 
 
 48. Life of John Smith. A biography of the hero of the Po- 
 cahontas-Powhattan epi^de in Virginia history. 
 
 i^(). Life- of Chevalier Bayard. . .. 
 
 50. Life of General Greene. 
 
 51. Father Abbott, or the Home Tourist. A medley — sketches 
 of Southern scenery, society, feelings, and fancies. 
 
 52. Southward Hoi In which a party of travellers discuss 
 Southern^ themes, peoples, scenes, and things generally. It has 
 been styled a species of Decameron. 
 
512 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 53. Paddy McGann, or the Demon of the Stump. A humorous 
 novel, published in The Southern Illustrated News, in 1863 or 
 1864. 
 
 54. Joscelyn : a Tale of the Revolution. A serial tale, pub- 
 lished in The Old Guard, early in 1867. This appears to be 
 ratlier a favourable specimen of Mr. Simms's war novels. 
 
 55. Views and Reviews of American History, Literature, and 
 Art. A collection of graver papers — critical, biographical, and 
 discursive. 
 
 56. Egeria, or Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods 
 and Wayside. A thesaurus of aphorisms and brief thoughts and 
 fancies, thro^te together in the style of Goethe's Opinions, or of 
 Montesquieu's Pensies Diver ses. 
 
 57. The Morals of Slavery. A series of papers published in 
 The Southern Literary Messenger, and then envolumed, with 
 other able essays by other authors on cognate points, in a work 
 entitled The Pro-Slavery Argument. 
 
 58. War Poetry of the South. A collection of lyrics by 
 Southern poets, appeared late in 1866. This is a valuable 
 book, but indicates some carelessness in preparation, and has a 
 good many mistakes. 
 
 59. Reviews. These have not been gathered in volumes yet, 
 but would fill several. While editor of The Southern Quarterly 
 Review, Mr. Simms wrote the greater part of several issues ; 
 and he always supplied the shortcomings of his contributors 
 by writing largely for every number while he had editorial charge. 
 He contributed liberally to various other periodicals — TJte 
 Knickerbocker, Orion, Graham's Magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, 
 American Quarterly, and many others ; besides editing The 
 Southern Literary Gazette, The Magnolia, The Southern and 
 Western Monthly Magazine and Review, and no doubt others, 
 longer since forgotten than some of these. 
 
 60. Orations. Stated, elaborate, and numerous. 
 
 61. Lectures. Courses of lectures on Poetry and the Practi- 
 cal, on Hamlet ; and single lectures too numerous to enumerate. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 513 
 
 62. Historical and Social Sketch of Craven County. 
 
 63. The Star-'Brethfen, and Other Stories. 
 
 64. Voltmier, or the Mountain Man. A tale of the old North 
 State ; was copyrighted in 1868, and published in serial in The 
 Illuminated Western World in 1869. 
 
 65. The Cub of the Panther. A mountain legend; published 
 in serial in The Old Guard, 1869. 
 
 Mr. Simms is a native of Charleston, South Carolina,: of 
 Scotch-Irish descent, born on Thursday, the 17th of April, 1806. 
 Early left an orphan, in the care of his grandmother, of limited 
 means, he found himself while yet almost a child, thrown upon 
 his own resources, and the stringency and solitude of that youth 
 nurtured a power of self-reliance and noble will that, have borne 
 him to his present high place in our country. He wrote verses 
 at eight. He read miscellaneously everything that fell in his 
 way. In the absence of a regular- classical education he seized 
 and assimilated all the information that lay within his reach. 
 He acquired with great rapidity ; so that, at eighteen, he pos- 
 sessed a fund of knowledge remarkable in one so young ; unpre- 
 cedented in one for whom the regular training of the schools 
 had done so httle. 
 
 He was originally designed for the study of medicine ; but his 
 tastes revolted at the course, and he betook himself with dili- 
 gence to Blackstone ; and was admitted to the bar at the age of 
 twenty-one. 
 
 He practiced law, however, but a short time. It was too 
 slow. Success^ the brilliant success that he considered worth 
 his endeavour — lay too remote in the future. Besides, a taste, 
 amounting to a passion — a necessity, in fact — for literary ut- 
 terance, led him from law to literature. The event has proved 
 the choice to be fortunate both for himself and for the country. 
 
 His first pen-labour was in editing The Charleston City 
 Gazette, a political news-sheet, of union or anti-nullification 
 principles. The whole concern sunk, and left its adventurous 
 helmsman afloat. The influence of this catastrophe upon him 
 
514 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 seems to have been healthy ; for he thereupon devoted himself 
 afresh to literature proper, with spirit and rapid success. 
 
 He made his dibut as a litterateur, about his nineteenth year, 
 in a Monody on General Cliarles Cotesworth Pinckney. The suc- 
 cess of this effort was highly gratifying to the young author ; and 
 from that time till the present — nearly forty years — he has 
 devoted himself uninterruptedly to literature as a profession ; 
 and honourable results have accrued to the country from that 
 devotion. 
 
 He served one term as a representative in the Legislature of 
 South Carolina, and made his mark there. 
 
 As 3.prosateur, Mr. Sinims made his appearance as the author 
 of Martin Faber, a romance of absorbing interest. A unit in 
 conception, clearly conceived, and written in a style aglow with 
 energy and passion, Martin Faber was a decided success ; for 
 an unknown Southern author, a brilliant success. The book 
 fully deserved it. The story of guilty love, the complex nature 
 of crime, the cry of blOod from tlie mute earth, and above all, 
 that mysterious law in the moral government of the universe by 
 which the bloody hand of the murderer is made to point to his 
 own bosom ; these things are delineated with graphic power. 
 
 Once fairly before the public as a novelist, our author laboured 
 assiduously, and threw off from year to year, sometimes from 
 month to month, his rapid series of fictions ; now dealing with 
 the rugged original and aboriginal characters of early American 
 life ; now depicting the heroic achievements of the knights of 
 elder Spain and the crafty Saracen ; now amid the tropic blooms 
 of Florida ; now in the abandon of Southwestern life ; now on 
 the Dark and Bloody Ground — over the whole -wide range of 
 Southern and Southwestern American hfe. He was most at 
 home in the revolutionary times, when war, and craft, and 
 treachery, and love, and death, ruled the hour ; or in the older 
 and pre-revolutionary times, when the stalwart and sturdy Indian 
 yet struggled with bloody hands for his erstwhile dominions, and 
 yet hoped to wrest his lands from the pale-faces. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 5^5 
 
 From his little Legend of the Table Rock to his elaborate 
 fiction of The Yemassee, he has done these things well. 
 
 The tendency of our author's mind has been from the Sub- 
 jective to the objective ; from the inner life to the outer; from 
 motives and their analyses to deeds and events. Martin Faber 
 presents to us subtle analyses of inner action, evolved through 
 events ; but Ave see that the author keeps in view his hero's 
 motive nature. Gradiially, in subsequent books, Mr. Simms has 
 left out of view more and more the inner man, and has given 
 us the outer with increasing vividness and power. And^ further 
 yet, maiiy of his fictions thrust forward events — events, rather 
 than deeds — to the exclusion of almost everything else. We 
 lose sight of the man — the hero — himself as well as his motives 
 in the dizzying whirl of events. In doing this, Mr. Simms has 
 determined for himself a position not held in the same degree by 
 any other writer of fiction, North, Soiith, or British. In that 
 wielding of events, that sacrificing of characters to situations, 
 he stands unsurpassed — to a great extent unapproached. In 
 America, neither Brown nor Cooper is his equal in this regard ; 
 though both surpass him far in certain other qualities. Here 
 the contest for first place ' in general merit, or in the balance of 
 merits (including quantity), lies between our author and Cooper. 
 In characterization and in polish, Cooper has the advantage ; 
 while in the energy of action, variety of situations, and perhaps 
 in literal truthfulness of delineation — I mean the absence of 
 fanciful and impossible personages — Mr. Simms has clearly the 
 advantage. 
 
 In general results — take both for all in all, quantity, versa- 
 tility, and quality — it may be reasonably questioned whether 
 Mr. Simms has an equal in America. I believe he has not. In 
 general value to his sphere of literature he is facile princeps 
 both North and South. 
 
 With this position I may safely, I presume, make mention of 
 what the critics — a disagreeable class of meddlesome persons 
 — call our author's faults. 
 
Si6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " He gives us too much ruffianism," says the reverend dogma- 
 tist of New-York criticism. This may be true ; but the fault is 
 in the times portrayed rather than in the author who faithfully 
 portrays them. It is not maintained — even Griswold did not 
 venture to announce — that Mr. Simms's books are more ruf- 
 fianly than the ruffian times and society of which he writes. The 
 error, if error there be, lies in choice of subject. 
 
 It is urged that there is too much profanity and coarseness in 
 the conversations ; but Mr. Simms, in substance, very properly 
 replies : "If Brown and Jones w/// deal in smut and damns and 
 use bad words, he really cannot prevent them; it is. a way 
 they have. It may be very wicked in Brown and Jones ; but if 
 these gentlemen are to appear before the world of readers at all, 
 truth as well as art demand that they (Brown and Jones) should 
 appear as they are." To so present them is exactly -yvhat Mr. 
 Simms set out to do. No one seems to desire a quarrel witli, 
 Defoe because Moll Flaggon is not a pink of perfection ; nor 
 with Fielding, because Jonathan Wild is not an exemplary young 
 man ; nor with Smolletj because Ferdinand Count Fathom is a 
 scamp of the first water ; nor with Scott, because the Lily of St. 
 Leonard's is as frail as she is fair. Then, may not Guy Rivers 
 use a strong expression or two without the critic's holding Mr. 
 Simms responsible ? 
 
 It is objected further that his literal truthfulness becomes a 
 fault ; that the author mistakes when he gives us the disgusting 
 and repulsive in place of the merely horrible ; that he nauseates 
 rather than moves with tragic horror. It is a feature in wliich 
 he has gone beyond Defoe, the foster-parent of th^ literal in 
 fictitious narrative in modern literature. In this case I am 
 constrained to leave Mr. Simms with his critics, 
 
 The ease with which Mr. Simms writes has often betrayed him 
 into carelessness in style. His English suffers thereby. This 
 effect is, unfortunately, too often apparent. One critic, though 
 not the severest, has charged upon the English of his earlier, 
 works that it was "verbose, involute, and not unfrequently 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 517 
 
 ungrammatical." Tliis may be putting the point too forcibly. 
 Elegance of composition, however, can- scarcely be noticed as 
 the characteristic of any of his works. 
 
 Edgar Poe says of Mr. Simms : " He has more vigour, more 
 imagination, more movement, and more general capacity than all 
 our novelists (save Cooper) combined." 
 
 In attestation of our author's descriptive powers, a little fact 
 of literary history is noteworthy. It is this : When Sealsfield, a 
 Gennan writer of some note, appropriated whole pages together 
 from Guy Rivers, by translation into his own works without a 
 word of acknowledgment, these stolen passages were seized 
 upon by die laudatory critics, quoted in their notices, and lauded 
 all over Germany " as superior to anything done by Americans 
 in describing their own country !" 
 
 Gilmore Simms is the Walter Scott of South Carolina. Both 
 have done for their native lands the same thing — have traced 
 up the stream of history to its sources ; and from the terrcR 
 incognita of legend and tradition have given us pictures of life 
 in striking and fascinating colours. Both have swept the dust 
 and grime from the cobwebbed canvass of history with the brush 
 of fiction, and made the dim features salient and attractive. 
 
 As a historiographer our author has not aimed high, and has 
 accomplished just what he proposed — a readable history of 
 South Carolina for the young, something fresh with new life ; 
 something of less "immemorial dust and dignity" than Ramsay 
 and Carroll, and something of far less research than Rivers. 
 It is largely drawn from Ramsay, as Ramsay is largely drawn 
 from Hewat. 
 
 As a biographer Mr. Simms has produced four creditable 
 volumes ; an almost inappreciable portion of his many works, 
 yet enough alone to make considerable reputation for a second- 
 rate litterateur. The Life of Bayard is the one upon which he 
 seems to have bestowed most pains and in which he felt most 
 direct interest. A reviewer remarks that this Life was written 
 44 
 
5l8 LIVIKG WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 con amore ; but that may be said of almost everything he has 
 ever written. Con amore is his style. 
 
 As a poet also Mr. Simms has written a great deal — more 
 than any other Southern writer. 
 
 It would be pleasant for me to record my conviction that he 
 stands as high in this department of letters as he does in that 
 of prose fiction ; but the conviction is wanting, and I cannot 
 make the record. 
 
 Mr. Simms'slong poems oxeAtalanth, The Cassigue of AceaSei, 
 Donna Florida, The Vision of Cortes, and perhaps I should add, 
 The Tricolor and The City of the Silent. This is exclusive of 
 his dramas. He has pubhshed, I believe, counting in one or 
 two revisals and several recombinations, eighteen volumes of 
 verse and two dramas. 
 
 Atalantis is perhaps the best of the narrative poems. It was 
 written when the author was young. The story is an impossible' 
 one of a Nereid, a sea-monster, and a Spanish knight — a fairy 
 fiction of passible merit as a story. It is told mainly in blartk 
 verse. The interest of the narrative is meagre, far removed as 
 it is from human sympathies and from the heart-life of mankind 
 in general. Its success when published was moderate, but fully 
 equal to its merits. There are in it some passages of true poetry, 
 and numbers of detached thoughts that are very fine. This, for 
 example : — 
 
 They had a gentle voice. 
 Tremulous as an echo, faintly made. 
 The replication of an infant's cry, 
 Thrown back from some rude mountain. 
 
 The force and delicacy in the above are worthy of Shelley in 
 his happiest moods. I could quote several passages of this 
 kind found here and there throughout the poern. 
 
 If The Cassique ofAccabee were given in good prose, the effect 
 would be better than as it is ; and the story — a love legend o^ 
 Indian life and Indian passion in the long ago — would stand 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 519 
 
 properly upon its meiits ; stand, I mean, unencumbered with the 
 detriment of second-rate versification. That it is a romance, 
 and not a poem, i^s abundantly apparent at every step in the 
 perusal ; and, at the conclusion, one naturally wonders why it 
 has been put into verses or stanzas at all. I maintain that tlie 
 Laws of the Confederate Congress, for instance, would not be- 
 come poems by being versified. It is so with a mere history, a 
 mere oration, or a mere romance. 
 
 Of Donna Florida it is scarcely fair to speak, since, I believe, 
 the author apologized for it many years ago, upon the plea of 
 youthful indiscretion; The aim of the author was high — to rival 
 Don Jufm; to place beside Byron's work, just then fresh in 
 the public enthusiasm, an American poem like it. It is useless 
 to say that the effort was a failure, failure being too feeble a 
 word. The effort was sublime in its daring, and the result is 
 just one step removed from the sublime — the one step of the 
 proverbs that lies between the sublime and — Donna Florida. 
 
 The City of the Silenf'vs, apparently the least ambitious of all 
 these more elaborate poems ; certainly the most successful. It 
 is a grave theme, in its nature poetical, handled with earnestness, 
 and full of thought. 
 
 The minor poems — lyrics, sonnets, ballads,, odes, epodes, 
 eclogues, serenades, madrigals, idyls, monodies. Anacreontics, 
 lays, roundelays, and canzonets — come next in order. These 
 are equal, as a mass — perhaps I should say superior — to the 
 longer poems noticed above. They fill several volumes, and 
 number several hundreds, if not thousands. 
 
 Among all these there is not one single poem of any kind, 
 tliat has caught hold on the affections of our people ; no single 
 l)Tic that has become a favourite upon the lips of beauty ; no 
 song that lies upon all our pianos ; not a stanza that has come 
 to pass/^r ora virum as household words ; nothing like My Life 
 is Like the Summer Rose, ' Tis Said tJiat Absence Conquers Love, 
 My Maryland, or Florence Vane, or even The Health. 
 
 I should not feel warranted in making this stricture, did not 
 
S20 LIVING WRITERS OF 'HIE SOUTH. 
 
 Hoe form of so many of these miscellaneous poems suggest it. 
 They are designed for the many. 
 
 Time, I am aware, may sometimes be necessary for this kind 
 of poem to make way to the popular heart ; not generally so, 
 however. But Mr. Simms "wrote verses at eight" — half a cen- 
 tttry ago. 
 
 Let us see more immediately the style of these poems. 
 
 Spring has always passed for a poetical subject. Anacreon 
 has something to say of it ; and so has nearly every poet since 
 his time, and a goodly number before it. And moonlight -is 
 eminently poetical. In selecting a single lyric of Mr. Simms's as 
 illustrative of his vein, we find these two poetical themes united 
 in Moonlight in Spring, a song, selected by its title from Arey- 
 tos, a collection of Songs of the South. 
 
 The moonlight creeps from plain to grove; 
 
 The green to silver turns ; and soon 
 The bird of spring, made glad with love 
 
 As grateful for the generous boon. 
 
 Pours forth his tune. 
 
 His songs find echoes in my heart, 
 Yet moves me not like him to sing ; 
 
 For I have seen my birds depart. 
 
 My moonlight, with my joys, take wing. 
 And leave no spring. 
 
 Yet, better thus the memories keep. 
 
 Of bliss that once the heart hath known ; 
 
 They soothe, e'en while they make us weep. 
 And, though the flowers they brought be gone, 
 The scent's our own. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 521 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thus watching through the night I see, 
 
 As glides the moonlight to the grove. 
 Some shadowy fonns, that seem to me 
 
 Sweet wooers, that persuade to rove. 
 
 Still seekmg love. 
 
 This is fair, at least passable; pretty well — pas tnal — and 
 the same terms would, unfortunately, apply to the mass of poems 
 beside this. Everything is passibly good; and the passibly- 
 goodness is oppressively uniform. No one thing stands above 
 all others, like the Elegy of Gray, Alexander's Feast of Dryden, 
 Longfellow's Psalm of Life, Poe's Raven, Wilde's Summer Rose, 
 Shelley's Sky Lark, Woodworth's Old Oaken Bucket, Cook's 
 Florence Vane, Pinckney's Health, ox eveh Woodman, Spare 
 that Tree. 
 
 The grand difficulty with our author's, poems, considered in 
 general, is comprised in a generality; a generality, however, that 
 will impress any one who reads the volumes themselves. That 
 difficulty pertains to both manner and matter. It is that they 
 are prosaic; excellent things, many of them, in their way, but 
 not poetically excellent. They evince thought, information, 
 reading, and a sense of beauty, and even imagination and 
 fancy ; but they ^xq prosaic for all that. 
 
 The author's mind seems often to be ^^«fa/ enough ; but when 
 giving utterance for others, he manifests a want of «ri7«geniality, 
 and that want is painfully manifest at every step. It arises from 
 a too absorbing ego-personal character of mind. The poet can 
 not forget, can not sufficiently ignore, himself. 
 
 Besides the prosaic, one finds too much of what may be 
 called the commonplace. This element appears more in the 
 choice of subject — rather in the subjects chosen — than in the 
 style. But it is fatal in botli. 
 
 One is constantly reminded of something one has read before 
 — read years ago, and hardly tliought wortli remembering. 
 44* 
 
522 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Here is an example or two, to illustrate my meaning. We read 
 in Areytos : — 
 
 Destined to sever, 
 
 Thrice hapless ! for years, 
 Perchance again never 
 
 To meet, or in tears; 
 
 and a faint remembrance steals over us of these lines from 
 Byron : — 
 
 When we two parted 
 
 In silence and tears. 
 Half broken-hearted. 
 
 To sever for years. 
 
 If I should meet tliee. 
 
 After long years, 
 How could I greet thee ? -r- 
 
 With silence and tears. 
 
 And that was a vein of tlie truly poetic that Byron well-nigh; 
 exhausted. 
 
 But again, when the author oi Areytos dashes off in this style : — 
 
 I seek to sing of glory, 
 
 And for my deathless name. 
 To win from future story 
 
 A high and holy fame. 
 I strike the eager lyre. 
 
 The fond desire to prove ; 
 But ah ! the sounds expire. 
 
 And glory yields to Love, — 
 
 can any one keep Anacreon out of his head? Is it possible to 
 forget Moore's free and easy translation of Anacreon's fijst Ode 
 ■^To a Lyre — beginning thus : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 523 
 
 ■ I ■ often wisli this langirid lyre, 
 This world of my soul's desire, 
 Could raise the breath of song sublime 
 To men of fame in former time ^ 
 But when the soaring, theme I try, 
 Along the chords my numbers die. 
 And whisper, with dissolving tone, 
 "Our sighs are given to Love alone." 
 
 Perhaps Byron's rendering is better ; Cqwley's certainly is. 
 
 And so, as we turn from page to page of Areytos, these sug- 
 gestions occur dgain and again. Tliis is what is meant by the 
 commonplace. 
 
 I am not speaking of plagiarism. I have no intention or 
 desire of making that charge here ; nor do I wish to insinuate it 
 beyond what I say. I could give a number of other instances 
 of the Commonplace to which I havfr referred, but the few 
 given will illustrate my meaning. As specimens they are clear. 
 
 There is a something else— ^a tertium quid — in these poems 
 tliat is neither the prosaic, merely, nor the commonplace, 
 merely^ but (the necessity for a new word is absolute) a some- 
 tliing Tupperesque. ' 
 
 Tupper — I mean of course the proverbial philosopher — 
 appears to have a method peculiarly his own in getting up 
 poems. He first selects a subject. *" To-day occurs to him as a 
 theme upon which it appears reasonable that a poem may be 
 constructed. ' He accordingly sets to work and makes a poem 
 (not to be too exacting in the use of terms); sometimes getting 
 an idea into it, sometimes not; but, idea or none, a poem must 
 be made. It is finished. He then finds some correlative 
 or cognate, as To-morrow, or Yesterday, and by the same 
 process turns out a match poem. The sense in this brace of 
 poems (if they have any) may be smooth, the English entirely 
 passable, the ?^«originality not obtriisive, the prosaic somehow 
 kept in abeyance ; but yet the thing moves, like Maelzel's 
 
524 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 famous chess-player, as if on hinges and cranks — moves as if 
 Pegasus were a hobby-horse. 
 
 There is something Tupperesque in tliese Songs of the South. 
 
 The following stanza shows the effect when Mr. Simms 
 attempts to combine the playful and the fanciful: — 
 
 The birds that sing in the leafy spring, 
 With the light of love on each glancing wing, 
 Have lessons to last you the whole year through. 
 For what is " Coo-coo ! te weet tu whu," 
 But, properly rendered, "the wit to woof" 
 Coo-coo ! te weet tu whu, the wit to wool 
 Te weet tu whu ! 
 
 In summary, then, we find tliese poems to be prosaic, com- 
 monplace and Tupperesque. These three weights make enough 
 Bathos to sink any poetic genius that ever embarked upon tlie 
 sea of literature. 
 
 Our author has several of the elements of the true poet, such 
 as a' fertile and vivid invagination, a quick sense of effects, and 
 a ready faculty of construction. These qualities make his prose 
 often rich in imagery, and pleasing in happy illustration. 
 
 His poetry may be prosaic but his prose is poe^c. 
 
 Among the many poems before me there is a paraphrase of a 
 chapter of Isaiah, in verse. Above, I called attention to the 
 author's effort at rivalry of Byron. That I thought decidedly 
 enterprising for a young man — courageous to the very verge of 
 heroism. This — the undertaking to turn Isaiah into poetry — 
 rushes past the verge of heroism and plunges into the abyss 
 beyond. 
 
 Within tlie last few years, however, he has given tis another 
 specimen of this kind of moral heroism in paraphrasing — turn- 
 ing into poetry, isn't it ? — that thrilling and well-known passage 
 in the Prologue to Goethe's Faust, spoken by ^'^Poet, in which 
 that personage breaks forth with the wild and earnest passion of 
 misapprehended genius in this wise : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 525 
 
 "Then give me back again the times when Iiriyself was still 
 forming ; when a fountain of crowded lays sprang fresh and 
 unbroken .forth ; when mists veiled the world before me, the 
 bud still promised miracles; when I gathered the thousand 
 flowers which profusely filled all the dales 1 I had nothing, and 
 yet enough — the longing after truth, and the pleasure in 
 delusion. Give me back those impulses untamed — tlie deep, 
 pain-fraught . happiness, the energy of hate, the might of love ! 
 Give me back my youth L" 
 
 As a writer of dramas Mr. Simms has been more successful, 
 I am disposed to say, than in any other branch of the art poetic. 
 His two &izxas&— Norihan Maitrice and Michael Bonham — 
 are vigorous productions. They argj as the design evidently 
 was that they should be, popular. The scenes are striking, 
 and are such as tell upon an auditory ; but there is too much 
 speech-makings too much stumping — especially in Norman 
 Maurice. The style in general is too diffuse, too full and hurried, 
 and the language is verbose, turgid, and popular ; but in these 
 features,- it must be confessed, it is true to nature. Michael 
 Bonham is better in most of these respects ; but tiiere is a strong 
 family likeness in all respects between these brother tragedies. 
 For representation on the stage — a Western stage — they may 
 pass pretty well, but for the closet they will not do. 
 
 In conclusion of these discussions P have a word to add. 
 
 My conclusions may not always be correct, but 1 have wished 
 tiiem to be so. In justice to Mr. Simms, I am free to acknowl- 
 edge that I have not read all of his books, and in justice to 
 myself, it is but fair to say that I shall probably never do so. 
 
 Mr. Simms has not written an epic. Why, I have no idea ; 
 but we may be infinitely grateful that he has not. 
 
 Mr. -Simms resides at his country home. Woodlands, in Barn- 
 well County, South Carolina. The elegant buildings were de- 
 stroyed by fire a year or two before the war, and a large brick 
 structure upon the same plan was built upon the same site. 
 The mansion was a handsome building, with equal wings, and a 
 
526 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 fine front. This, together with an extensive and valuable 
 library, was destroyed by Sherman's forces in their transit 
 through the state in Z865. The proprietor has been twice 
 married. His small family reside with him. His style of life 
 and his hospitality were, in tlie days of his prosperity, those of 
 the wealthy and cultivated Southern gentleiman. 
 
 In person he is of medium size, five feet ten inches in height ; 
 having blue eyes of earnest expression; beard and hair now 
 grey, both worn full, but not long. His manner is direct and 
 initiative, free and confident. He talks a great deal ; in com- 
 pany discourses constantly | rarely, if ever, converses. 
 
 In a poem published in 1864 by Dr. J. Dickson Bruns, Mr. 
 Simms is thus referred to : — 
 
 And " Woodland's" harp is mute ; the grey old man 
 Broods by his lonely hearth, and weaves no song ; 
 
 Or, if he sing, the note is sad and wan. 
 Like the pale face of one who's suffered long. 
 
 Mr. Simms's chirograph is full of cliaracter — wonderfully like 
 the author and like the man. 
 
 MISS CARRIE BELL SINCLAIR. 
 
 In i860 — though dated 1861 — at the same time and in 
 similar style with Miss Blount's volume of verses, appeared one 
 by Miss Sinclair of Augusta, Georgia. This volume also is 
 entitled Poems. They are tlie verses of a girl. 
 
 Miss Sinclair was born in Milledgeville, Georgia, on the 2 2d 
 of May, 1839, and is the daughter of an itinerant Methodist 
 minister, who lived a while in Macon, awhile in .Savannah, 
 awhile in North Carolina, awhile in Georgetown, South CaroUna, 
 and finally in Augusta, Geoigia. Miss Sinclair is a niece of 
 Robert Fulton pf steamboat fame. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 527 
 
 The following stanzas will serve to illustrate her style of 
 thought and of utterance. The poem is entitled Dreaming : — 
 
 Dreaming a dream of long ago, 
 Of a brow as cold as the winter snow ; 
 Drearhing of lips that pressed my own ; 
 Dreaming of joys that all have flown; 
 Dreaming of hands that lie at rest 
 Over a cold and pulseless breast ; 
 Dreaming, idly di-eaming on — 
 .What are these dreams to me? 
 
 Dreaming of eyes that meet my gaze 
 Through the dusky shadows of by-gone days; 
 Dreaming of words that filled my ear 
 When the form of a lover lingered near; 
 Dreaming of what he said to me 
 As he clasped my hand on bended knee ; 
 Dreaming of vows that then were spoken ; 
 Dreaming of vows that now are broken ; 
 Oh ! what are these dreams to me ? 
 
 Dreaming of music half forgot. 
 That lingered one eve on a shaded spot ; 
 Dreaming a dream of an olden time. 
 Filling my soul with its merry chime. 
 Dreaming again of by-gone years; 
 Dreaming of smiles ; dreaming of tears; 
 
 Dreaming, idly dreaming on — 
 What are all these dreams to me ? 
 
 Dieaming now of a homeste^ dear, 
 Of the father who sat in the old, arm chair; 
 Dreaming of soft blue sl4e5 that smiled 
 So lovingly there when I was a child ; 
 Dreaming of things tha,t meet my gaze 
 Through the dusky shadows of by-gone days, 
 
 Dreaming, idly dreaming on — 
 What are these dreams to me? 
 
S28 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Dreaming of shady, sunny bowers ! 
 
 Dreaming of music, song, and flowers ; 
 
 Dreaming o'er tales of love I told 
 
 Ere my brow grew sad and my heart grew old ; 
 
 Dreaming a dream by the moon to-night ;, 
 
 Dreaming a dream, oh ! wondrous bright ; 
 
 Dreaming a dream as fair as truth. 
 
 Too sweet to fade with the hopes of youth, 
 
 Dreaming again of my homestead dear, 
 Of the pale, cold forms that slumber there ; 
 Dreaming of things that meet my gaze 
 Through the duslty shadows of by-gone days; 
 Dreaming to-night of other years ; 
 Dreaming of smiles ; dreaming of tears ; 
 Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming on — 
 When will these weary di-eamings end? 
 
 This poem is not without good points ; and were it not for the 
 affectation of a sere-and-yellow-leaf-edness of heart that might suit 
 a blasee of ninety, would be very creditable to Miss Sinclair. It 
 promises something far better, and let us hope the promise will 
 be kept. 
 
 If the following poem did not in some way suggest The Isle 
 of the Long- A go — a poem of contested authorship — I should 
 accept it at once as Miss Sinclair's best. It is of recent date, I 
 believe. She entitles it The Long Ago : — 
 
 There's a beautiful isle in the Long Ago, 
 
 All flooded with golden light ; 
 And a river that glides by the magic shore. 
 
 Whose waters are wondrous' bright ! 
 And a bark that iuoves with snowy sails, ; 
 
 And the music of silver oar, 
 That carries us back to the shining gates 
 
 Of that beautiful Past once more ! 
 And every heart holds some sweet dream 
 Of a beautiful Long Ago ! 
 
LlVmc WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 529 
 
 There were bright hopes nursed in that Long Ago ; 
 
 Fair flowers have perished there ; 
 And the walk of the beautiful Past is hung 
 
 With pictures bright and fair ; 
 And oh 1 there is room for our feet to tread 
 
 The path of these by-gone years ! 
 There are joys that bloom in Memory's field, 
 
 And a fount for our bitter tears; 
 And that foimt is filled with hallowed tears 
 We wept in that Long Ago ! 
 
 There are happy dreams the heart holds dear — 
 
 Sweet dreams of the Long Ago ! 
 And sacred tears for the perished joys 
 
 That will return no more ; 
 And thus in the tangled web of life 
 
 We weave our smiles and tears. 
 And cling to the holy memories 
 
 That hang round departed years ! 
 Ah ! drop the silken curtain now 
 Of the beautiful Long Ago ! 
 
 Shut out the light of those vanished years. 
 
 Close the door of the Past again. 
 And hush the yearning thoughts that rise 
 
 To give the bosom pain ; 
 Ah ! roll the heavy stone against 
 
 That sepulchre — the Heart ! 
 Why should these buried forms again 
 
 To life and beauty start ? 
 The Future may hold some dream as bright 
 As those of Long Ago! 
 
 The exquisite poem to which I made reference above — The 
 Isle of the Long Ago — has been attributed to the late Philo 
 Henderson of North Carohna; to Benjamin F. Taylor of Chi- 
 cago; to Miss Whittlesley of North Carolina; to Henry J. 
 Howard of Baltimore ; and to an anonymous English source. 
 The only parties to whose claim there remains the "shadow of 
 a probability are Henderson and Taylor. 
 45 
 
53° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 A new collection of Miss Sinclair's Poems, including all her 
 war-poems, is now ready for publication, under the title oiHeart- 
 Whispers, or Echoes of Song. Several of these war-songs have 
 been put to music. 
 
 In person Miss Sinclair is small, having fair complexion, blue 
 eyes, and dark-brown hair ; features small and general expression 
 often one of sadness. 
 
 Her chirograph indicates earnestness, constancy, quickness 
 and acuteness of feeling, hopefulness, and a limited desire for 
 applause. 
 
 PHILIP SLAUGHTER. 
 
 In noticing the volume mentioned below, the Southern Review 
 makes this mention of the Rev. Mr. Slaughter : " Few persons, 
 if any, suffered more from the war than the venerable and be- 
 loved author of the pious little book in question. His library 
 was burned, or destroyed, or scattered to the four winds by 
 the Vandals of die Northern army ; and it fared little, if any 
 better with his furniture, house, and other property." The 
 author is defined as Rector of Cavalry Church, Culpeper 
 County, Virginia. 
 
 His " pious httle book " is : Man and Woman ; or the 
 Law of Honour Applied to the Solution of the Problem — Why 
 are so Many More Women than Men Christians? 
 
 I am not aware that Mr. Slaughter has written any other 
 works. 
 
 CHARLES H. SMITH. 
 
 Of the- many humorous writers in the broad-burlesque vein 
 who have obtained at various times propularity in the South, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 531 
 
 none, I venture — not even Thompson, Hooper, or Long- 
 street — has ever struck a deeper and more universal current 
 of popular sympathy than " Bill Arp — So Called." His letters 
 began to appear in 1S61 ; and from that time to' the present tliey 
 have been universally read. . During the war every, soldier in 
 the field knew BUI Arp's "last;" and throughouit the country 
 everybody read his irresistible and inimitable Letters.- 
 
 Our humorist is also a lawyer, a statesman, a mayor, and a 
 gentleman. He is one of the firm of UnderWood & Smith, 
 attorneys-at-law, Rome, Georgia; arid has been a meriiber of the 
 Senate of his native state. He is to-day mayor of the town of 
 Rome, Georgia. 
 
 I have never enjoyed the pleasure of seeing Mr. Smith; but 
 the 'following sketch of him, by an itinerant newspaper corres- 
 pondent, impresses me as being sprightly enough to be true : 
 "Tall, stoudy-built, with black eyeS, hair, and beaid, slightly 
 bald, and of rather a grave expression of countenance. . , . . 
 A lawyer of fine abilities, and in social, intercourse a very inter- 
 esting gentleman,, when shaking off what seems an, habitual 
 reserve. Often, however, when saying least, an. arch .curve, of 
 the Up will betray beyond mistake some facetious thoughts flitting 
 through the brain of the great Unharmontzed Fadaeriof Chicka- 
 homihy and Bull Run Arp." i , : . . 
 
 Our author" s only book, as far as I am advised, )is the collected 
 Letters referred to above, published iji volume by the Metro- 
 politan .ff^irt?^^ establishment in 1866, under the title of' — 
 
 Bill Arp — So Called.- It is gotten up in; good , style, illus- 
 trated, and well finished. Instead of giving either an analytical 
 estimate of the book or an illustrative arid, characteristic extract 
 I give an extract, frorii a letter from the author to his publisher 
 about his Letters — a kind of preface to the volume. It is under 
 the author's real name :.-^ 
 
 "For the sentiments. tloat pervade these ; Letters I have no 
 apology to make. At the time tiiey appeared in the press of 
 the South, these sentiments were tlie silent echoes of our people's 
 
532 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 thoughts, and this accounts in the main for the popularity with 
 which they were received. Of course they contain exaggerations, 
 and prophecies which were never fulfilled ; both sections were 
 playing 'brag 'as well as 'battle,' and though we could not 
 compete with our opponents in the former, yet some of us did 
 try to hold our own. At both games we were whipped by over- 
 whelming>forces, and we have given it up. Conquered, but not 
 convinced, we have accepted the situation, and have pledged 
 ourselves to abide by it. We have sworn to do so. We have 
 declared it most solemnly in convention. We have asserted it 
 in every act and deed ; and Southern honour, which our enemies 
 cannot appreciate, but which is untarnished and imperishable, is 
 the seal of our good faith. Whoever testifies to the existence 
 among us of an association designing a renewal of the rebellion, 
 is either the victim of his own cowardice, or else the author of a 
 selfish and heartless he. I say this with feeling and indignation, 
 for we see in such testimony a wilUngness, nay, a desire on 
 the part of our mihtary rulers to retain over us their power and 
 their t3aanny for malicious or avaricious ends. 
 
 " To the charitable reader let me say, Forgive 
 
 me if you find something to condemn in the following pages. 
 It is not in my heart to offend a good man, whether he live 
 North or South ; and there be better judges than I of what 
 should have, or have not, been written. It may be said that 
 the character of these letters has no tendency to soften the ani- 
 mosities engendered by the late unhappy strife. I can only 
 answer that it is not in rebel nature to be humble to those who 
 would put the heel of tyranny upon us. Our people are a unit 
 upon the moral of the fight they made. They sincerely felt that 
 the provocation of the war was not of their begetting. Many a 
 time and oft have men and nations been conquered, but not con- 
 vinced. The story of Ireland, Poland, and the ' Hero of the 
 Lakes,' has been often reproduced, to illustrate that wrongs are 
 not remedied, nor rights secured, by wager of battle. 
 
 " While mourning the loss of thousands of the noblest of our 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 533 
 
 race, while suffering the poverty and desolation with which our 
 conquerors have visited us, whUe memory stirgs with the rape 
 and arson wliich barbarians under arms enforced and hearfless 
 officers permitted, it is not in human nature to smother resent- 
 ment against those who would still play the tyrant and grind us 
 into dust. 
 
 " But to you, kind reader, who can speak gently to the erring 
 (if we have erred), who would pour oil upon the troubled waters, 
 and proffer the hand of kindred love, let me say that, though 
 proudly defiant of our enemies, the noble manliness of our people 
 will meet you cordially at the first sincere effort toward an honour- 
 able reconciliation. Otherwise we wiU close up the avenues of 
 our hearts, and like the red men of the forest, transmit our bitter- 
 ness and our wrongs as a heritage to our children. 
 
 " Republicans, Puritans, Pharisees, Saints — you who were 
 suckled with songs of pity for the charcoal race, whose hypo- 
 critical s)aa'ipathies have been for years playing leap-frog over 
 the poverty and distress around your own doors, and alighting afar 
 off in the sunny land ; who have seen and are seeing thousands 
 of your dusky pets perishing and passing away, from the lack of 
 food and lust of freedom ; you whose morning hymn is, ' I love 
 my love with a B because he is black,' and whose evening 
 prayer, 'May the Lord send freedom without money and with- 
 out price ; ' you who look upon our people as a race of turbulent 
 devils and a foul blot upon the good name of the land — to you 
 I conunend all the comfort that you can find within these pages. 
 Small though this volume be, it will nevertlieless save you the 
 exclamation, ' Oli, that mine adversary had written a book ! ' " 
 
 THOMAS SMYTH, D.D. 
 
 The most voluminous theological writer in the South is Dr. 
 Smyth, an eminent Presbyterian divine of Charleston, South 
 Carolina. 
 
 45* 
 
534 LIVING WRITERS 01 THE SOUTH. 
 
 He was boiti in Belfast, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parentage, in 
 1808 ; was educated in part at Royal Belfast Collegey and later 
 in Londoh; feame to America in 1830; graduated at Princeton 
 College, New Jersey, in 1831 ; and in 1832 he removed to 
 Charleston, to take charge of the Second Presbyterian Church 
 in that city, which position he has continued to hold since then, 
 and holds to-day. ' ■ 
 
 In 1843 he received from his American alma mater the degree 
 of Doctor of Divinity. 
 
 Dr. Smith made his dibut as a writer by the publication of 
 two discourses, in pamphlet form, upon The Theatre, a School 
 of Religion, Manners, and Morals I The exclamation point is 
 a part of the title, and indicates the animus of these discourses. 
 They are the fulminations of a Scotch genius hurled from the 
 cloud-encircled throne of that stern theology.; This brochure 
 was published in 1838, when the author was just thirty. 
 
 Besides that he has published the following works : — 
 
 1. Lectures on the Apostolical Succession. Published in 1841. 
 
 2. Lectures on Prelacy and Presbytery. 1843. 
 
 3. Ecclesiastical Republicanism ; or the Republicanism, Liber- 
 ality, and Catholicity of Presbytery, in contrast with Prelacy and 
 Popery. 1843. 
 
 4. Presbytery and not Prelacy the Scriptural and Primitive 
 Polity. 1843. 
 
 5. The History, Character, and Results of the Westmnister 
 Assembly of Divines. A Discourse in Commemoration of the 
 Bi-Centenary Anniversary of that body. 1844. 
 
 6. The Claims of the Church of Scotland. 1844. 
 
 7. The Life and Character of Calvin the Reformer Reviewed 
 and Defended. 1844. 
 
 8. An Ecclesiastical Catechism of the Presbyterian Church. 
 1845. 
 
 9. The Name, Nature, and Functions, of kuling Elders; 
 wherein it is shown from the testimony of Scripture, tlie Fathers, 
 and the Reformers, that the Ruling Elders ai-e not Presbyters or 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 535 
 
 Bishops ; and that, as representatives of the people, their ofBce 
 ought to be temporary; with an Appendix on the use of the title 
 Bishop. 1845. 
 
 I o. The Romish and Prelatical Rite of Confirmation Examined; 
 and proved to be contrary to the Scriptures, and the practice of 
 all the earliest and purest churches, both Oriental and Western ; 
 with an Appendix on the duty of requiring public profession 
 of religion. 1845. 
 
 11. Solace for Bereaved Parents ; or Infants Die to Live; 
 with a historical account of the doctrine of infant salvation ; 
 also very full selections from various authors in prose and 
 poetry; 1846. 
 
 12. Unity of the Human Race Proved to he the Doctrine of 
 Scripture, Reason, and Science ; with a review of the present 
 position and theory of Professor Agassiz. 1850. 
 
 13. The True Origin and Source of the Mecklenburg Decla- 
 ration of Independence. 
 
 14. Wliy Da I Live? 1857. 
 
 15. The Well in the Valley. 1857. 
 
 1 6. Obedience the Life of Missions. 1 860. 
 
 MRS. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH. 
 
 Mrs. SouTHWORTH is a native of Washington, D. C, and was 
 born on Saturday, the 26th of December, 1818. She is Franco- 
 English in her descent, through her father from Charles, le 
 Comte Nevitte, and through her mother from Sir Thomas 
 Grenfeldt, a knight of the times of James I. She has written 
 a vivid narrative of her early years, and from this I select a 
 few sentences : — 
 
 "At the age of six, " she says, " I was a little, thin, dark, wild- 
 eyed^ elf, shy, awkward, and unattractive, and, in consequence, 
 very much — let alone." 
 
 " Year after year," she adds, " from my eighth to my sixteenth 
 
536 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 year, I grew more lonely, retired more into myself, until, not- 
 withstanding a strong, ardent, demonstrative temperament, I 
 became cold, reserved, and abstracted, even to absence of mind 
 — even to apparent insensibility." 
 
 Here occurs a hiatus in the narrative. 
 
 " Let me pass over, " resumes our autobiographer, " in silence 
 the stormy and disastrous days of my wretched girlhood and 
 womanhood — days tliat stamped upon my brow of youth the 
 fuiTOws of fifty years ; let me come at once to the time when I 
 found myself broken in spirit, health, and purse — a widow in 
 fate, but not in fact — with my babes looking up to me for a 
 support I could not give them. It was in these dreariest days 
 of my woman's life that my author's life commenced." 
 
 Her first works were written under the most trying circum- 
 stances — a heart tried as woman's rarely is, poverty, the unre- 
 munerated toil of teaching, sickness, loneness, despondency — 
 and the success that came, came suddenly. 
 
 " Friends,'' says our author herself, " crowded around me, 
 offers for contributions poured in upon me; . and I, who six 
 months before had been poor, ill, forsaken, slandered, killed.\>Y 
 sorrow, privation, toil, and friendlessness, found myself born, as it 
 were, into a new life ; found independence, sympathy, friendship, 
 and honour, and an occupaion in which I could delight. All 
 this came very suddenly ; as after a terrible storm, a sunburst." 
 
 It is not my design to trace the fortunes of our brilliaint and 
 popular author through its varied details and trials — details and 
 trials that make up in themselves the materials for a volume as 
 striking as her most successful fiction. 
 
 On achieving both fame and fortune, Mrs. South worth secured 
 a handsome villa on the the Potomac Heights, and made it her 
 home. This was in 1853. Since that time she has responded 
 to some of the handsomest and most liberal ofiers ever make 
 to an American contributor. She had conquered fate, and is 
 a successful author. 
 
 In 1859 she went to England for a change of climate, in 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 537 
 
 order to repair a slight decline in her health, the result of too 
 close pen-work. 
 
 Mrs. Southworth's novels have had a greater popularity in 
 their special sphere, I believe, that those of any other American 
 novelist. Sensational they must undoubtedly be called ; yet it 
 is a kind of sensation of which the reading world — I mean 
 more than the novel-reading world — has approved a great deal ; 
 and even staid, proper, and respectable: England has petted a 
 vast deal of just such sensation in Miss Braddon's earlier novels. 
 
 An accomplished and discrimitiating author of her own sex 
 says of these novels : — 
 
 "Among our impassioned writers whose crowded and pungent 
 lives seem to flow out resistlessly from their pens, no woman's 
 name is more electrical to the popular ear than that of Mrs. 
 Southworth. Voluminous as her Writings are, embracing a wide 
 personal and emotional range, we are told that she has never 
 yet drawn upon her imagination for the basis of a single charac- 
 ter. To this fact may be attributed the power of her portraiture, 
 and the spell whicli holds her readers. Nothing is so strange as 
 reality; and Mrs. Southworth, in bringing veritable men and 
 women from the extremes of her observation, and allowing them 
 full scope for self-assertion, has laid her stories open to the 
 charge of imnaturalness. Then, too, if she has not drawn upon 
 her imagination, as a pervading element of her mind, it has sur- 
 rounded and infiltrated her characters. Peculiar circumstances 
 having called into action all the fire and force of her nature, she 
 has poured herself out through these living media, and their loves 
 and hates have lost nothitfg by the intense attrition." 
 
 In five years Mrs. Southworth wrote eleven large volumes — 
 eleven of the most powerful and most popular of her impassioned 
 productions. 
 
 Her works are these : — 
 
 1. Retribution. Published in 1849. 
 
 2. The Deserted Wife. 
 
 3. The Lost Heiress. 
 
S38 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTIT. 
 
 4. The Gypsy's Prophecy. 
 
 5. The Discarded Daughter. 
 
 6. Lovds Labor Won. 
 
 7. The Fatal Marriage. 
 
 8. The Bridal Eve. 
 
 9. Allworth Abbey. 
 
 10. The Fortune Seeker. 
 
 1 1. The Bride of Llewellyn. 
 
 12. The Three Beauties. 
 
 13. Vivia ; or the Secret of Power. 
 
 14. The Two Sisters. 
 
 15. The Missing Bride. 
 
 16. r/5? ^z/'^'j Victory. 
 
 17. The Mother-in-Law 
 
 18. The Haunted Homestead. 
 
 19. 7%i? Zfl(/j' <?/"«'>%^ ^^/(J. 
 
 20. India. 
 
 21. Hickory Hall. 
 
 22. The Broken Engagement. 
 
 23. 7%i? Widoiefs Son. This novel appeared in 1867. Wliile 
 the idea that almost all Mrs. Southworth's fictions have experi- 
 ence or at least fact as their basis constantly arises in the mind 
 of the reader, it comes in this case directly from the author. In 
 her preface she says : " I wish to say to my friends that this 
 tale is no mere fiction. The scenes in the Widow's Cottage are 
 photographed from life. The history of the Widow/ s Son is ihsx 
 of one of our wealthiest merchants and most celebrated philan- 
 thropists." 
 
 2^. Fair Play. Published in 1868. 
 
 2$. Fallen Pride ; or the Mountain ''GirFs Love. Appeared in 
 December of 1868. 
 
 There are half a dozen other novels given as by this author ; 
 but they appear to be either reissues of former ones under new 
 titles, or the discarded titles of second issues. 
 
 In classing Mrs. Southworth among Southern writers, I have 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 539 
 
 followed Mrs. Freeman's classification. That writer — under 
 the nom deplume of Mary Forrest — included Mrs. Southworth 
 in her Women of the South Distinguiihed in Literature, which 
 ■ appeared in i860. I infer from that fact that such was the 
 desire — or at least the willingness — of the voluminous novelist 
 herseK 
 
 MARTIN JOHN SPALDING, D.D. 
 
 Archbishop Spalding is a native of Kentucky, and seems to 
 be about sixty years of age. He is a graduate of the College 
 under the direction of the ancient Congregatio de Propaganda 
 Fide in Rome. He served several years as a priest; and in 
 1848 was consecrated Bishop of Legqne, and coadjutor to the 
 Right Rev. Dr. Flaget, Bishop of Louisville. In 1864 he was 
 appointed to succeed the late Archbishop Kenrick in the See 
 of Batimore. That See, in 1858, by decree of the Congrega- 
 tion of the Propaganda, confirmed by his Holiness Pope Pius 
 IX., received the prerogative of place ; and thus the Archbishop 
 of that See becatme the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church 
 in the United States ; and accordingly has the seat of honour 
 above alj otder Archbishops, without regard to promotion or 
 consecration. No prelate, I believe, in the' United States has 
 ever stood higher either in ability as a scholar and a theologian 
 or in enthuasiasm and devotion to the interests of his Church. 
 
 He was first known in the literary world as a writer of argu- 
 mentative reviews ; but his strength lies in the larger works of 
 his mature years. His published works are : — 
 
 I. History of the Reformation; in two large volumes. It is 
 said to be one 6i the most searching and exhaustive histories of 
 that movement that has ever been written from the hostile, or 
 papal, stand-point. If there is a man living thoroughly possessed 
 of the spirit and very genius of Catholicity, it is this author ; and 
 the nature and character of this work can be characterized in no 
 
54° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTIf. 
 
 more appropriate and forcible manner than by saying that the 
 author has thrown his own spirit and genius most heartily into 
 it. The schismatics are handled without gloves. 
 
 2. Evidences of Catholicity. , , , , 
 
 3. Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky. , 
 
 4. Miscellanea. 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS. 
 
 ■ It is as a, litt&rateur mainly, and only incidentally as a poli- 
 tician and statesman, that I propose to speak of the Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the late Southern Confederacy. 
 
 The speeches, addresses, orations and letters that he has pub- 
 lished belong to the domain of politics ; and I shall not enu- 
 merate nor discuss them here. AU these matters, as well as a 
 liberal amount of biographical information and a vast deal of 
 praise, are to be found in Mr. Cleveland's work entitled, — Alex- 
 ander ff. Stephens in Public and Private. Mr. Stephens's polit- 
 cal views upon tlie great questions of secession and the wajr are 
 given in his work mentioned below. 
 
 Mr. Stephens was born in what is now Taliaferro, County, 
 Georgia, on Tuesday, the nth of February, 1812. He is a 
 self-made man ; and his early life was severe, self-denying and 
 laborious. His political laistory is well-known. He is un- 
 marrriedi 
 
 His personnel is meagre, and indicates feeble health, bearing 
 marks of great physical suffering. An air of um'est and discon- 
 tent seems never to leave him. He is the most unhappy-look- 
 ing gi-eat man I have ever seen. His. residence — Liberty Hjall 
 — is at Crawfordsville, Georgia. 
 
 His magnum opus — in one sense I may say his unwn opus — 
 appeared early in 1868 ; and bears the title: A, Constitutional 
 View of the War Between the States ; its cause, character, con- 
 duct, and results, presented in a series of colloquies, at Liberty 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 541 
 
 Hall. The parties to these colloquies are Judge Bynum, from 
 Massachusetts, who speaks from the stand-point of the radical 
 branch of the Republican party North ; Professor Norton, from 
 Connecticut, who represents the conservative branch of the 
 same party ; and Major Heister, from Pennsylvafiia, who repre- 
 sents the War Democrats. The introduction to the book gives 
 the above points, and defines the scope of the work and the 
 points at issue in the following words : — 
 
 " It is a postulate with many writers of this day that the late 
 war was the result of two opposing ideas, or principles, upon 
 the subject of African slavery. Between these, according to 
 their theory, sprung the 'irrepressible conflict,' in principle, 
 which ended in the terrible conflict of arms. Those who assume 
 this postulate, and so theorize upon it, are but superficial obser- 
 vers. . 
 
 "That the war had its origin in opposing principles, which, 
 in their action upon the conduct of men, produced the ultimate 
 collision of arms, may be assumed as an unquestionable fact. 
 But the Opposing principles which produced these results in 
 physical action were of a very different character from those 
 assumed in the postulate. They lay in the organic structure of 
 the Government of the States. The conflict in principle arose 
 from different and opposing ideas as to the nature of what is 
 known as the General Government. The contest was between 
 those who held it to be strictly federal in its character and 
 those who manitained that it was thorouglily national. It was a 
 strife between the principles of federation on the one side, and 
 centralism, or consolidation, on the other. 
 
 " Slavery, so called, was but the question on which these an- 
 tagonistic principles, which had been in conflict from the begin- 
 ning on divers other questions, were finally brought into actua 
 and active collision with each other on the field of battle. 
 
 " Some of the strongest anti-slavery men who ever lived were 
 on the side of those who opposed the centralizing principles 
 which led to the war. Mr. Jefferson was a striking illustration 
 46 
 
542 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of this, and a prominent example of a very large class of both 
 sections of the coiititry, who were, most unfortunately, brought 
 into hostile array against each other. No more earnest or ardent 
 devotee to the emancipation of the black race, upon humane, 
 rational, and constitutional principles, ever lived than he was. 
 Not even Wilberforce himself was more devoted to that cause 
 than Mr. Jefferson was. And yet Mr. Jefferson, though in private 
 life at the time, is well known to have been utterly opposed to 
 the centralizing principle, when first presented, on this question, 
 in the attempt to impose conditions and restrictions on the State 
 of Missouri, when She applied for admission into the Union, 
 under the Constitution. He looked upon the movement as a 
 political mancBuvre to bring this delicate subject (and one that 
 lay so near his -heart) into the federal councils, with a view, by 
 its agitation in a forum where it did not properly belong, to 
 strengthen the centralists in their efforts to revive their doc- 
 trines, which had been so signally defeated on so many other 
 questions. The first sound of their movements on this question 
 fell upon his ear as a 'fire bell at night' The same is true of 
 many others. Several of the ablest opponents of that state 
 restriction, in Congress, were equally well known to be as de- 
 cidedly in favour of emancipation as Mr. Jefferson was. Among 
 these may be named Mr. Pinckney and Mr. Clay, from the Souths 
 to say nothing of those men from the North, who opposed that 
 measure with equal firmness and integrity. 
 
 " It is the fashion of many writers of the day to class all who 
 opposed the consolidationists, in this, their first step on this 
 question, with what they style the pro-slavery < party. No 
 greater injustice could be done any public men, and no greater 
 violence be done to the truth of history, than such a classification. 
 Their opposition to that measure, or kindred subsequent ones, 
 spnmg from no attachment to slavery; but, as Jefferson's, 
 Pinckne/S, and Clay's, from their strong convictions that the 
 Federal Government had no rightful or constitutional control or 
 jurisdiction over such questions; and that no such action as 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 543 
 
 that proposed upon them could be taken by Congress without 
 destroying the elementary and vital principles upon which the 
 government was founded. 
 
 " By their acts they did not identify themselves with the pro- 
 slavery party, (for in truth, no such party had, at that time, or 
 at any time in the history of the country, any organized exist- 
 ence). They only identified themselves, or took position with 
 those who maintained the federative character of the General 
 Government. 
 
 "In 1850, for instance, what greatei: injustice could be done 
 any one, or what greater voilence could be done the truth of 
 history, than to charge Cass, Douglas, Clay, Webester, and 
 Fillmore, to say nothing of others, with being advocates of 
 slavery, or following in the lead of the pro-slavery party be- 
 cause of their support of what were called the adjustment mea- 
 sures of that year? 
 
 '" Or later still, out of the million and a half, and more, of the 
 votes cast in the Northern States, in i860, against Mr. Lincoln, 
 how many could it, with truth, be said were in favour of slavery, 
 or even that legal subordination of the black race to the whitCj 
 which existed in the Southern States ? 
 
 "Perhaps not one' in ten thousand. It was a subject with 
 which they were thoroughly convinced they had nothing to do, 
 and could have nothing to do, under the terms of the Union by 
 which the states were confederated, except to carry out and 
 faithfully perform all the obligations of i:he constitutional com- 
 pact. 
 
 " They simply arrayed 'theniselves against that party which 
 had virtually hoisted the banner of consolidation. The contest, 
 so commenced, which ended in the war, was, indeed, a contest 
 between opposing principles; but not such as bore upon the 
 policy or impolicy of Africa:n si.ib ordination. They were prin- 
 ciples deeply Underlying all considerations of that sort. They 
 involved the very nature and organic structure of the govern- 
 ment itself. The conflict on this question of slavery in the 
 
544 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 federal councils, from the beginning, was not a contest between 
 the advocates or opponents of that peculiar institution, but a 
 contest, as stated before, between the supporters of a strictly- 
 federal government on the one side and a thorough national 
 one on the other. 
 
 " It is the object of this work to treat of these opposing prin- 
 ciples, not only in their bearings upon the minor question of 
 slavery, as it existed in the Southern States, and on which they 
 were brought into active collision with each other, but upon 
 otliers (now that this element of discord is. removed) of far more 
 transcendent importance, looking to the great future, and the 
 reservation of that constitutional liberty which is the birthright 
 of every American, as well as the solemnly-guaranteed right of 
 all who may here, in this new world, seek an asylum from the 
 oppressions of the old." 
 
 This work has been most elaborately reviewed ; and the reviews 
 have elicited a good deal of argument and a great deal of per- 
 sonality. The main discussion arose from an elaborate, pungent 
 voilent, and personal review of the book in The Southern Review 
 by Dr. Bledsoe, one of the editors of the review. To this Mr. 
 Stephens replied elaborately, ably, and fully. Rejoinder fol- 
 lowed ; and so the war waged in the front ; but the merits of 
 the' work were everywhere discussed pro and con, and the au- 
 thor in all respects came out the gainer. 
 
 MISS ZODA G. STITH. 
 
 A small volume of Poems by this young author appeared 
 from the Southern Methodist Publishing House of Nashville in 
 1867, under the nam de plume of Elloie. TJie Home Monthly, 
 to which Miss Stith contributes frequently, thus estimates the 
 work : — 
 
 "We cannot rank her with the highest, nor can we place her 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. S4S 
 
 among those who rush thoughtlessly into print. She has a 
 message for every pure heart. This message if not new and start- 
 ling, is true and grandly important. Tlirough the. tears of sorrow 
 she points to brighter skies overhead, It may be profitably 
 read by any one. There is nothing morbid or insipid in the 
 volume. These poems are the heart-utterances of a pure-minded, 
 heaJthful-thoughted, Christian woman, and as such they are 
 instructive and pleasing." 
 
 PHILIP STROBEL. 
 
 The History of the Salzburg Colony at Ebenezer, Georgia, was 
 written by a Lutheran minister, the Rev. Mr. Strobel, and pub- 
 lished, in octavo, a good many years ago. The colony at 
 Ebenezer was one of Germans — Lutheran — and had an interest- 
 ing history. Mr Strobel was born in Charleston, South Caro- 
 lina; lived in Columbia of his native state; in SaVaftnah, Georgia; 
 and is now resident,'! believe, somewhere North. 
 
 THOMAS O. SUMMERS, D.D. 
 
 This is the most voluminous writer among the Methodist 
 polemists; and his influence in that field has been largely in- 
 creased by his connection with the publishing establishment at 
 Nashville. In this relation he has edited, revised, edited with 
 introduction, edited with biographical introduction,, or otlierwise 
 put his name upon the titl^-pages of forty-nine books and eleven 
 tracts written by others. His own works, published by tlie same 
 house, I believe, are the following : — 
 
 I. Baptism: A Treatise on the Nature, Perpetuity, Subjects, 
 
 Administrative Mode, and Use of the Initiating Ordinance of 
 
 the Christian Church ; with an Appendix, containing strictures 
 
 on Dr. Howell's Evils of Infant Baptism, ^laX&s illustrating the 
 
 46* 
 
546 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 primitive mode of baptism, etc. This is a duodecimo volume 
 of 252 pages. 
 
 2. Golden Censer: An Essay oii Prayer, with a selection of 
 forms of prayer designed to aid in the devotions of the sanctu- 
 ary, family, and closet — an octodecimo of 288 pages. 
 
 3. Holiness: A Treatise on Sanctification, as set forth in the 
 New Testament. This is a smaller volume than either of the pre- 
 ceding; and is spoken of by a denominational critic as a work 
 of " ability, perspicuity, and precision.'' 
 
 4. Refutation of the Theological Works of Thomas Paine, not 
 Noticed by Bishop Watson in his ^Apology for the Bible! This 
 tractate is usually bound with Watson's Apology, forming a kind 
 of complement of that work. Separate, it is an octodecimo, 
 volume of 84 pages. 
 
 5. Seasons, Months, and Days. The design of this little vol- 
 ume — an octodecimo of 108 pages — with its embellishments, 
 is "to make the reader acquainted with the origin and import of 
 the names by which the seasons, months, and days are designa- 
 ted, including some of the historical, mythological, and poetical 
 relations of the subject, and suggesting such moral reflections as 
 may lead the contemplative mind through nature up to nature's 
 God." ' 
 
 6. Strictures on Dr. HoweWs Evils of Infant Baptism. . This 
 is a brochure of 72 pages, duodecimo. 
 
 7. Sunday-School Teacher; or the Catechetical Office. 
 
 8. Sunday-School Speaker. A collection of original and 
 selected pieces in poetry and prose, for Sunday-school celebra- 
 tions. This is a compilation. 
 
 9. Talks Pleasant and Profitable. This is a book for youth, 
 upon the subjects of orphans, May-day, birds, temperance, 
 Peter and the tribute-money, retribution, and recognition of 
 friends in heaven. 
 
 10. Scripture Catechism. Part i. the Old Testament; Part 
 II. the New Testament. 
 
 Dr. Summers lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is tlie editor 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 547 
 
 of The Christian Advocate — the weekly organ of the Southern 
 branch of the Methodist Church, as I understand it ; is also 
 editor of The Sunday-School Vtsittn He enjoyte the reputation 
 of being the best read man in that denOrnination. 
 
 MISS SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY. 
 (Mrs. Von Weiss.) 
 
 The critics have always dealt kindly with Miss Talley. Gris- 
 wold gives her unqualified praise, and- Edgar Poe ranks her 
 very high, and gives her distinctive quahty as imagination. All 
 the compilers, as far as I have seen, follow these Apollonian 
 authorities. The praises that I shall feel at liberty to bestow, 
 accordingly, have the basis^ of numerous and high authorities. 
 
 Miss Talley was born of Huguenotic ancestry, in the county 
 of Hanover, Virginia. When she was eight years old her father 
 moved to Richmondj and she entered school. Three years 
 after, the world of sounds was almost entirely closed to her by 
 a partial loss of the sense of hearing. This circumstance gave 
 direction to her studies, ha,bits, and tastes, aiid 1ms determined, 
 in no small degree, the cliaracter of her mental workings. At 
 the age of twelve she- manifested a remarkable ' cleverness at 
 drawing and painting, and this was cultivated carefully. At 
 thirteen she began to write verses. In her sixteenth year some 
 of her verses were published- in The Southern Literary Messen- 
 ger, to which she continued to contribute for many years. She 
 also contributed to several other journals. 
 
 In 1859 a volume of her Poems was .published in New York. 
 
 There are some things in Miss Talley' s Poems which irresist- 
 ibly remind one of what one has read before. When one reads 
 Ennerslie, her chief poem, one is likely to be reminded of Ten- 
 nyson's Lady of Shaldtt. The hoary tower, grim and high, — 
 tlie river that glideth by, — the lady fair, — the pale young lord 
 
548 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 of Ennerslie, — and a number of distinctive touches in Miss 
 Talley's poem, make one feel that he is in the atmosphere of 
 many-towered Camelot ; while the triplet and quartet rhymes 
 in the stanzas with the curt relief of shorter verses, and the eter- 
 nal ring of Ennerslie in the one and Camelot and Shalott in the 
 other, are strangely — may-be vaguely, but strangely — ahke. 
 At the same time the repetition of the refrain-word in every 
 stanza is an expedient that Mrs. Browning had well-nigh 
 exhausted the novelty of, even at that date. 
 
 Again, when one reads Miss Talley's Lady of Lodee, vague 
 shadows of Tennyson's Sisters flit over the sky of memory. 
 
 And here and there throughout the volume the captious 
 critic will find faint, though they be sweet, echoes of Tennyson, 
 Mrs. Browning, Poe, and Longfellow. 
 
 Among the poems most admired — and most worthy of admira- 
 tion after Ennerslie, are Madonna, Cloistered, Guy of Mayne, 
 Rest; and of later date. Autumn Rain. 
 
 Ennerslie is far too long to quote entire in this place ; but I 
 give, as illustrative of the tone and rhythm, the concluding stan- 
 zas. Possessed of the secret of the curse resting upon the Lord 
 of Ennerslie, the heroine proceeds to remove it, as follows : — r 
 
 The nurse, she shimbered in her chair ; 
 
 Then up arose tha.t lady fair 
 
 •And crept adown the winding stair. 
 
 Stealthily — stealthily ; 
 A boat was by the river side ; 
 The silken scarf as sail slie tied. 
 And lovely in her beauty's pride 
 
 Went gliding dovm to Ennerslie. 
 
 Back upon the sighing gale 
 
 Her tresses floated like a veil ; 
 
 Her brow was cold, her cheek vpas pale, 
 
 Fearfully — fearfully. 
 Was that a whisper in her ear? 
 Was that a shadow hovering near ? 
 Her very life-blood chilled with fear 
 
 As down she went to Ennerslie. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 549 
 
 As upward her blue eyes she cast 
 A shadowy form there flitted past 
 And settled on the quivering mast. 
 
 Silently — silently. 
 The lady gazed, yet spake no word : 
 She knew it was the demon bird. 
 The dark, avenging spirit weird 
 
 That dwelt at Ennerslie. 
 
 Fainter from the tower's height 
 Seems to her the beacon light. 
 Gleaming on her misty sight 
 
 Fitfully— fitfully. 
 The river's voice is faint and low, 
 A chilly dew is on her brow ; 
 She saith, "The curse is on me now. 
 
 But 'tis no more on Ennerslie 1 
 
 "And he will never know," she sighed. 
 When hither comes his Southern bride. 
 That one for love of him hath died. 
 
 Secretly — secretly ; 
 I knew that here I could not stay — 
 My heart was breaking day by day — 
 And dying thus, I take away 
 
 The evil spell from Ennerslie." 
 
 Amid that tower's solitude, 
 He sitteth in a musing mood. 
 And gazetli down upon the flood. 
 
 Mournfully — moumfiilly ; 
 When lo ! he sees a tiny bark 
 Gliding amid the shadows dark, 
 And there a lady still and stark; 
 
 A wondrous sight at Ennerslie I 
 
 He hurried to the bank below. 
 Upon the strand he drew the Jjrow — 
 He drew it in the midnight's glow. 
 Eagerly — eagerly. 
 
55° LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 He parted back the golden hair 
 
 That veiled her cheek and forehead fair; 
 
 Why St vts he at that beauty rare. 
 
 The pale young lord of Ennerslie? 
 
 He called her name — she nothing said; 
 Upon his bosom drooped her head; 
 The soul had from the body fled 
 
 Utterly — utterly 1 
 Slowly rolled the sluggish tide — 
 The breeze amid the willows sighed; 
 "Oh, God ! 'the curse is on me ! " Cried 
 
 The stricken lord of Ennerslie. 
 
 I have elsewhere made mention of this poerii in its resem- 
 blance to Judge Requier's Legend of Tremaine. 
 
 The following little poem was written, I believe, since the war. 
 It is called The Autumn Rain, and is genuinely poetical j though 
 the rain and tears have been compared before, and cloudy days 
 and hearts that are sad and dreary have been sung before; 
 and, further "droppeth" and "falls" are not in what the Gram- 
 mars call the same form. I give the poem entire : — 
 
 Softly, mournfully, slowly, 
 
 Droppeth the rain from the eaves ; 
 It falls on the heads of the drooping flowers. 
 
 In the hearts of the withered leaves. 
 
 And sadly, mournfully, slowly. 
 
 O'er the distant hills 
 The funereal clouds are gliding low, 
 
 As the rain from the sky distils. 
 
 And my tears could fall as sadly 
 
 For the pleasant days that are past — 
 And dark as the clouds on the lonely hills 
 
 Are the shadows around me cast. 
 
 But holier far, in its sadness, 
 
 Is the desolate' autumn time, 
 Than the light that parcheth the fainting flowers 
 
 In the fulness of summer's prime. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 551 
 
 And holier, gentler, and purer. 
 
 Are the thoughts that hallow the heart 
 Which hath seen the buds of its hope decay 
 
 And the light of its Joy depart. 
 
 For they were the April flowers. 
 
 And these are the golden sheaves — 
 The sad, sweet thoughts on the heaijts that fall. 
 
 As droppeth the rain from the eaves. 
 
 During the war Miss Talley held for a while a clerkship in the 
 War Department at Richmond; and late in the war became 
 Mrs. Von Weiss — the wife of a German officer — and retired 
 into the country. Her recent productions are dated at Rich- 
 mond,, from which I infer that she again resides in or near that 
 city. 
 
 MRS. MARY T. TARDY. 
 
 A VOLUME entitled Southland Writers — a collection of 
 sketches of female writers of the South -^ appeared a few weeks 
 ago from the pen of this lady. She is resident in Mobile, 
 Alabama. 
 
 GEORGE B. TAYLOR. 
 
 Mr. Taylor is a Virginian, and as far as I am informed has 
 written but three volumes, under the general title of The Oak- 
 land Series. The three volumes respectively are : — 
 
 1. Kenny. 
 
 2. Cousin Guy. 
 
 3. Claiborne. 
 
552 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 MRS. MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE. 
 (Marion Harland.) 
 
 Marion Harland has written. — 
 
 1. Alone. A novel. 1854. 
 
 2. The Hidden Path. 1856. 
 
 3. Moss Side. 1857. 
 
 4. Nemesis. 
 
 5. Miriam. 
 
 6. Husks. 
 
 7. Husbands and Homes. 
 
 8. Sunny Bank. 
 
 9. The Christmas Holly. A new illustrated book for the 
 holidays. This volume is elegantly printed on tinted paper, 
 and illustrated from designs by Stephens. 
 
 10. Theory Versus Practice has recently appeared serially in 
 Godey's Magazine. 
 
 w. Ruby s Husband. 1868. 
 
 Marion Harland's maiden name was Howes. She was born 
 in Virginia, and spent most of her young life in Richmond. 
 
 In 1856 she married the Rev. E. P. Terhune, at that time 
 pastor of a church in Virginia. In 1859 they moved to New- 
 ark, New Jersey, whither Mr. Terhune had been called to take 
 pastoral charge of the First Reformed Dutch Church. 
 
 Marion Harland's novels are all of a certain moral tone ; 
 good sort of books dealing with good sort of people, but some- 
 times a bit tame, though abounding in true touches of generous 
 and Catholic humanity. 
 
 Our author, besides being an eminently popular novelist, is 
 also a poet. The following verses— Z<7W Me — are happily illus- 
 trative of the woman, the author, and the poet — all inone : — 
 
 Thy heart is like the billowy tide 
 
 Of some impetuous river, 
 That, mighty in its power and pride, 
 
 Sweeps on and on forever. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 553 
 
 The white foam is. its battle crest, 
 
 As to the charge it rushes,. 
 And from its vast and panting breast 
 
 A stormy shout up gushes. 
 
 " Through all, o'er all, my way I cleave, 
 
 Each barrier down-bearing 
 Fame is the guerdon of the brave, 
 
 And victory of the daring ! 
 While mine is like the brooklet's flow, 
 
 Through peaceful valleys gliding, 
 O'er which the willow boughs bend low. 
 
 The tiny wavelet hiding." 
 
 And as it steals on, calm and clear, 
 
 A little song 'tis singing, 
 That vibrates soft upon the ear. 
 
 Like fairy vespers ringing; 
 "Love me — love me !" it murmurs o'er, 
 
 'Midst light and shadows ranging ; 
 " Love me," it gurgles evermore. 
 
 The burden never changing. 
 
 Thine is the eagle's lofty flight. 
 
 With ardent hope aspirii^ 
 E'en to the flaming source of light, 
 
 Undoubting and imtiripg. 
 Glory, with gorgeous sunbeam throws 
 
 An iris mantle o'er thee ; 
 A radiant present round thee glows. 
 
 Deathless renown before thee. 
 
 And I, like a shy, timid dove. 
 That shuns noon's fervid beaming. 
 
 And far within the silent grove. 
 Sits lost in loving dreaming. 
 
 Turn, half in joy and half in fear. 
 From thine ambitious soaring. 
 
 And seek to hide me from the glare 
 
 That o'er thy track ispourittg; 
 
 47 
 
S54 LIVING. WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 I cannot echo back the notes 
 
 Of triumph thou art pealing, 
 But from my woman's heart there floats 
 
 The music of one feeling — 
 One single longing, pleading moan 
 
 Whose voice I cannot smother — 
 "Love me — love me ! " its song alone, 
 
 And.it will learn no other ! 
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THOMAS. 
 
 There is neai-ly half as much difficulty in fixing the natal place 
 of the living Thomas as there was in fixing that of the dead 
 Homer — three cities claim the honour. Duyckinck says that 
 Mr. Thomas was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Coggeshall, in 
 his Poets and Poetry of the West, says he was born in Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina. Mr. Griswold states that he was born in 
 tiie city of Providence, Rhode Island. 
 
 Mr. Griswold seems to give the statement with a detail that 
 renders it probable that he is correct, that Mr. Thomas was 
 born in Providence, and in his early infancy was moved to live 
 in Charleston, and, while yet a youth, was removed to Balti- 
 more. The day of his birth appears to have been Tuesday, the 
 25th of October, 1808. A fall from a furniture-box, on which 
 he was playing, at the age of four, resulted in a lameness that 
 rendered the use of a crutch necessary the greater part of his 
 life. He received his youth-education in Baltimore, and com- 
 menced the practice of law there ; and there perpetrated his first 
 literary effort, which was a lampoon upon some local fops ; but 
 very soon — in 1830 — he followed his father, who had, a year 
 before, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. There he did but little with 
 law, but was editor, associate or in-chief, of some half a dozen 
 newspapers. Meanwhile, he was engaging in literary pursuits. 
 These are his pubhshed works : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 5SS 
 
 1. Clinton BradsJiaw. This is a novel, of which the hero is 
 a lawyer who blends politics with criminal practice in such a 
 way as to serve his purposes of ambition and advancement 
 The wire-pulling of petty politicians, and the scheming of dirty 
 party tools, detailed in the volume, give us a vivid idea of the 
 repulsive life a people's politician must lead. The book was a 
 decided success ; and the impression created by it partook of 
 the nature of the sensational. It was published in 1835. 
 
 2. East and West. A novel, published in 1836. The theme 
 of this fiction is the contrast between the two sections of thfe 
 country. It abounds in vigorous scene-painting, and in happy 
 delineations of hurporous and thorough-going characters. 
 
 3. Howard Pinckney. A story of life in America, like its 
 predecessors, but dealing with quieter men and times. Published 
 in 1840. These two later novels, while they were in their way 
 successful, fell far short of the popularity of Clinton Bradshaw, 
 die author's chef d' ceuvre of fiction. 
 
 4. The Beechen Tree, a Tale told in Rhyme, and ether Foems. 
 1844. 
 
 5. John Randolph of Roanoke, and other Public Characters. A 
 collection of personal, biographical, and political sketches,, 
 originally pubhshed in newspapers. It was first put in book 
 form in 1853. 
 
 6. The Emigrant, or Rejections when Descending the Ohio. 
 This was our author's maiden effort in the book hne, and should 
 have stood chronologically at the head of his works, it having 
 been published in 1833. It is a youthful poem, full of youth, 
 and ardour, and crudeness, and rhetoric ; but at the same time 
 not wanting in points of genuine poetry. 
 
 Besides these, he has written innumerable poems, essays, 
 sketches, leaders, paragraphs, and squibs for almost every re- 
 spectable newspaper in the South, and for many North. 
 
 He has been many things — a lawyer, an editor, a poet, a 
 professor, an autiior, a methodist preacher, a librarian, a lecturer, 
 a satirist, and a stump-politician. He was for a — while, some- 
 
5S6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 time between 1852 and 1858 — Professor of Rhetoric and 
 English Literature in the Alabama University. 
 
 In 1858, he settled, after his many wanderings in many lands, 
 principally Southern lands, at Cambridge, Maryland, to practice 
 law. 
 
 In i860, however, he laid aside the robes of his profession, 
 and took up the editorial pen, in conducting the literary de- 
 partment of The Richmond Enquirer. 
 
 During the war of secession, I believe he lived in the South. 
 About the time of its close, he saw engaged in editorial labours 
 on the staff of The South Carolinian, at Columbia. 
 
 As a poet, Mr. Thomas has written one of the most popular 
 songs of his day — one that may be heard in any wayside cot- 
 tage, as you traverse the country, no less than in the fashionable 
 drawing-rooms of the cities. I speak of the little song, ' Tis said 
 that Absence Conquers Love, a lyric that everybody knew in 
 its day, just as tout le monde knew and sang the Elow Gently, 
 Sweet Afton of Burns ; or When Stars are in the Quiet Skies of 
 Bulwer ; or When other Friends are Round Thee of Morris ; or 
 like any one of the multitude of mere songs that have had their 
 day, and afterwards are considered trite and old-fashioned j 
 songs that have their use in lifting a class of souls up from the 
 selfish and the sordid ; songs that are not much in themselves, 
 but are the ones best of all suited for the purpose they serve ; 
 and are, in one sense, better than better ones would be. 
 
 Mr. Thomas's song appeared first, I believe, in 1838. I give 
 it entire, as by far the best thing he has done in the line 
 lyrical : — 
 
 'Tis said that absence conquers love ; 
 
 But, oh, believe it not ! 
 I've tried, alas ! its power to prove, 
 
 But thou art not forgot. 
 Lady, though fate has bid us part. 
 
 Yet still thou art as dear, 
 As fixed in this devoted heart, 
 
 As when I clasped thee here. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 557 
 
 I plunge into the busy crowd, 
 
 And smile to hear thy name ; 
 And yet, as if I thought aloud. 
 
 They know me still the same. 
 And when the wine cup passes round, 
 
 I toast some other fair ; 
 But when I ask my heart the sound. 
 
 Thy name is echoed there. 
 
 And when some other name I learn. 
 
 And try to whisper love. 
 Still will my heart to thee return. 
 
 Like the xeturnine dove. 
 In vain ! I never can forget, 
 
 And would not be forgot ; 
 For I must bear the same regret, 
 
 Whate'er may be my lot. 
 
 E'en as the wounded bird will seek 
 
 Its favomite bower to die. 
 So, lady, I would hear thee speak. 
 
 And yield my parting sigh. 
 'Tis said that absence conquers love ; 
 
 But, oh ! believe it not. 
 I've tried, alas ! its power to prove, , 
 
 But thou art not forgot. 
 
 Of Mr. Thomas's chirograph, Edgar Poe says : " His MS. is 
 more like that of Mr. Benjamin than that of any other literary 
 person of our acquaintance. It has even more than the oc- 
 casional nervousness of Mr. B.'s, and, as in the case of the 
 of The New World, indicates the passionate sensibility of the 
 editor man." This was written in 1841 ; and, since then, Mr. 
 Thomas's hand has doubtless taken in several elements from 
 the varied life he has meanwhile been leading. 
 
 47* 
 
SSS LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON. 
 
 Mr. Thompson, a lawyer of Calhoun, Georgia, has been ex- 
 tensively known for a number of years as a contributor to most 
 of the literary periodicals South, and some North. He writes 
 poems, translations, criticisms, sketches, tales, and essays. 
 
 It is as a poet that Mr. Thompson has taken most distinctive 
 position ; and I quote, as fairly illustrative of his Style and sphere 
 in that field, An Allegory :' — 
 
 I. 
 
 "Soulless,'* they said, but I was blind 
 
 To all things save the hazel defips. 
 Unruffled by ^ gust of wind. 
 
 Wherein thy wondrous spirit sleeps, 
 "A spirit thexe,h\it no/ a sovl I" 
 
 Kept ringing heavily in my ears. 
 But still I heard the passion roll 
 
 Of music from the coming years. 
 
 Jl. 
 It was a May-day dream of Heaven. 
 
 Was it a fancy and no more? 
 I thought the gales of Fate had driven 
 
 My bark upon a golden shore. 
 I saw the drowsy lotus droop ■ 
 
 Beside the curled and solemn palm. 
 And in the ^eeny distance stoop 
 
 The fresher, greener groves of balm. 
 Ah, this was glorious as a strain 
 
 Of martial music heard afar. 
 And sweet as flutes when peace again 
 
 Folds up the tattered flags of war ! 
 
 III. 
 "Soulless !" I shouted back the word 
 
 From the cool deeps I revelled in. 
 And peeping from the waves I stirred. 
 
 Saw Helios where the sun had been ! 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 559 
 
 The Persian peach-blooms flushed and fell. 
 
 Through glary flecks of shade and sun. 
 In many a vision-haunted dell 
 
 Like those of sweet Helusion. 
 All lovely things personified 
 
 Looked each at each and gladly smiled, 
 And joy by Joy was multiphed. 
 
 Until young Hope, the fair-haired child. 
 Stood forth and beckoned with her hand. 
 
 And murmured through her parted lips. 
 Like a boat that murmureth to the land. 
 
 When safely moored it rolls and dips: — 
 " Come hither, I have that for thee 
 
 Which neither gold nor fame can buy. 
 Which it were worth thy life to see. 
 
 If thou Gould's only look and die ! " 
 Dear Hope, she blushed and kissed a rose. 
 
 And coyly tossed it at my feet. 
 While Joy sprang from a deep repose. 
 
 Her red lips pouting passion-sweet 1 
 
 Eremia, the mountains sleep, 
 
 The twilight shimmers down the west ; 
 Close up mine eyes, lest I should weep ; 
 
 All nature slumbers, let me rest \ 
 Eremia, I fold my hands ; 
 
 I close mine eyes, but farther see; 
 I rest, but wander many lands, 
 
 And traverse many seas with thee 1 
 
 V. 
 "Cold, soulless, false, designing, all 
 That you could wish her not to be. 
 Is the bright maiden whom you call 
 
 . Angelic in your ecstacy." 
 Too true, too true, I see it now, — 
 There is no passion that can wake 
 A sympathy in such as thou, 
 
 Though all the cords of being break. 
 
S6o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Still there is something passing sweet 
 
 In every withering memory, 
 Whose restless and unwearying feet 
 
 Go pattering down the Past to thee ! 
 Calling across the hush of night. 
 
 Soft voices start me from my dreams ; 
 Far in the starry deeps of light 
 
 A -vision of thy beauty gleams ! 
 
 This, as every one will confess, is a poem of many fine points ; 
 but an immense majority of even intelligent readers will not see 
 "what it is all about" without a decided effort of mind; and 
 this effort one in a thousand may be willing to make. And this 
 writing for the very few is Mr. Thompson's cardinal mistake as 
 a writer for odiers. In making his audience too fit, he makes 
 it far too few — for a popular poet, that is. 
 
 Tiuilight is perhaps the most natural of all Mr. Thompson's 
 poems : — 
 
 So sliort the time, and yet it seems so long. 
 
 Since 1 last saw thee, O my Beautiful ! 
 The very thought is resonant with song 
 
 And wraps my spirit in a wondrous lull. 
 I count the hours till I shall come again. 
 
 Each moment seems a little rose of time. 
 Each gust of wind thrills gently with a strain 
 
 Of witching, wildering melody and rhyme. 
 There comes a perfume from the sunset land. 
 
 And from the sunset vapours comes a voice ; 
 Some one in evening's gateway seems to stand. 
 
 And o'er a flood of glory shout, "Rejoice !" 
 I seem to look through all the lapsing years. 
 
 And see my path wind through a holy land. 
 While wondrous as the music of the spheres ! 
 
 Is the soft murmur of time's golden sand. 
 I see my springs go by, a golden train, 
 
 I see my summers with their corn and wines, 
 I see my autumns come and come again. 
 
 And roar my winters through the windy pines 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 561 
 
 Less natural than Twilight, but in most other points superior 
 to it, is In Love. Far less mystical and obscure than An Alle- 
 gory, it has all its fervour, less pedantry, and far more music 
 This is In Love: — 
 
 Love is an isthmus that ^oth link 
 
 This life with that \yhich is to be; 
 
 On either hand rolls off a sea. 
 To eastern verge, to western brink 
 'Of heaven that flashes goldenly ; 
 To suns that rise and suns that sink. 
 
 And Love hath many winding ways 
 • Among the blooming Yulan trees. 
 Where hum the honey-laden bees, 
 And linger long the sunny days. 
 
 All bird-songs that are ariose 
 
 Re-echo in the viny dells. 
 
 Where all the aromatic smells 
 O'erburden every breeze that blows. 
 
 Dear, we shall build our cabin here. 
 Where the chuchampac bourgeons low. 
 And Persian roses flash and glow 
 
 And vie with thy ripe cheeks, my dear. 
 
 Effete are all the other lands, 
 ^. The sun there looks on woodless hills, 
 
 A lifeless glebe some idiot tills, 
 And tends his herds on scqrching sands. 
 
 We'll flute our love from golden reeds. 
 Cut from the margins of the lakes. 
 Where thickest grow the feathery brakes 
 
 And highest mount the winged seeds. 
 
 My beautiful, thine azure eyes 
 Shall be as twilight stars to me, 
 Seen in the depths of some calm sea 
 
 Whereon no storm can ever rise. 
 
S63 LIVING WRITERS, OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Thy sweet blue eyes, untaught to weepj 
 Shall close to dream— wajte to rejoice. 
 While far away shall boom the voice 
 
 Of deep that answers unto deep ! 
 
 The best translations I have seen from Mr. Thompson are of 
 Anacreon, of whose Odes he seems to be especially fond. 
 
 Of sketches and tales Mr. Thompson has written a great 
 number. Of the latter, Burton Wade, Bachelor, is his best — 
 best in naturalness, and in having its denouement somewhat ex- 
 plicitly given. Leaving too much to the imagination of his 
 readers is the chief fault I have to find with Mr. Thompson's 
 stories. This characteristic tempers The Mystery of the Yellow 
 Gables, Eos, and' in fact nearly every fiction from this writer's 
 pen. At the end of the story we find ourselves puzzling over 
 the catastrophe. His heroes and heroines are all like Iphigenia, 
 of Greek, but more like Jephtha's daughter, of Hebrew, story. 
 
 In his essays Mr. Thompson shows us more of the scholar ; 
 and here a continuous display of learning ceases to be pedantry 
 but may become fatiguing. His Essay on Virgil, Italy and the 
 Arts, and Leibnitz, sliow the direction of his studies and tastes. 
 As illustrative of his sphere of speculative thought, of his literary 
 style in general, and of his mystical proclivities, I submit his 
 recent essay on the Geometry of Thought, which I give en- 
 tire: — ^ 
 
 " I. Space. — What if we premise that thinking is a purely 
 physical operation, and is governed by physical laws, is there 
 anything impossible in the proposition ? Of this we will inquire, 
 and for the sake of simplicity we will adopt a notation suggested 
 by that of Leibnitz in his monadic scheme^ We will suppose 
 man to be the most exalted of all monads- — an active energy 
 made up of a collection of according, ultimate, particular, active 
 forces. Now let us well understand what we mean by ultimate 
 particularity, for we go beyond the indivisibility of matter. If 
 the finest chalk be reduced -to an impalpable powder, we can 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 563 
 
 easily imagine a sifigle gi-ain of this dust reduced a million-fold, 
 and we might go on dividing a^ infinituM. Now when, by a 
 multiplicity of divisions almost infinite, we have concluded, if we 
 take one of the inconceivably minute particles, we yet have a 
 divisible body containing a vast multitude of living forces. Just 
 here we arrive at a point where the mind springs forward to &. 
 concMsion beyond the paled limits of philosophy: There is no 
 void or vacuum -— there can be none. Then space in the ab- 
 stract is the result of ultimate particular division. 
 
 " 2. Diffusion. — Let us suppose a s6lid body to be infinitely 
 diffused. This would naturally come about by a process of irra- 
 diation, the particles going off in straight lines from a common 
 centre. ■ Now, keeping the idea of infinite division in full view, 
 we may boldly assert that there will be a particle for every pos- 
 sible line of radiation, and that ultimately these lines will become 
 parallel, otherwise the division would be limited. 
 
 " 3. Attraction — Sympathy. — Taking analogy; we may say 
 that like attracts like, and that even the great Newtonian law is 
 but the law of sympathy. One energy seeks another. This is 
 the true idea of pte-established harmony. Effort is but a 
 result of this law, and whenever the will acts, it is but the move- 
 ment of particular energies toward an object — a partial diffusion 
 caused by a disturbance of the ultimate particles. 
 
 "4. Ratio — Capacity. — If two lines start from a given point 
 at a given angle, these lines will diverge by a ratio, and this 
 ratio remains the same until infinity is reached ; but when we 
 reach infinity, all lines, no matter from what point they started, 
 or at what angle, are equidistant. 
 
 "If the reader has given a moment's thought to the theorems 
 in the above sections, it will only be necessary hereafter to oc- 
 casionally refer to them by their respective numbers. Let us 
 now attempt to measure thought, or rather let us evolve the law 
 by which thought moves. To do tbis, let us imagine perfect 
 harmony and quiescence among the ultimate energies that make 
 up the grand nionas man. In this state the forces are acted 
 
564 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 upon by nothing extrinsic, neither do they act on anything 
 extrinsic; this, then, is mere passive consciousness — self-con- 
 sciousness — nothing more. At this point of utter quiescence, 
 suppose an outside force acts on the body, which causes a 
 mutual interdiange of particles ; the result is a thought, and tfap 
 first impression is the idea of extension — the germ of the more 
 perfect idea of form. Now, size is a mere word, for one object 
 can be divided as often as another, and when we reach the limit 
 of infinity, not only are there just as many particlss in one body 
 as another, but they are- also precisely equal in extent, each 
 being infinitely small. Therefore, when an outside force acts 
 on the primal energies, disturbing quiescence, the idea is in direct 
 proportion to the amount and nature of the particular commotion, 
 and this commotion or thought is strong or weak according to 
 the amount of particular displacement. 
 
 "Let us suppose an object- — real, tangible — becomes the 
 subject of thought. If we observe closely, two things become 
 apparent : first, form ; second, limit or size. But the idea is 
 abstract, merely belonging to the actual solid as the shadow to 
 the substance. Now if the particular disturbance is in propor- 
 tion to the extent of the disturbing object, then we may reduce 
 thinking to an exact science, either j^ysical or abstract. For 
 this purpose take tlie proposition of section 2, and we have an 
 argument springing up at once, leading us to but one possible 
 conclusion involving what may be termed the limit of capacity. 
 To understand what is here meant, suppose that by a particular 
 disturbance our thoughts are directed to a very minute body ; of 
 course a perfect irradiation will result reciprocally (see 2 a,nd 3); 
 and, since die object is very small, tlie energies flowing to 
 the body will necessarily converge, while those flowing from th^ 
 body, e converso, will diverge, therefore tlae only inconceivably 
 small object is the infinitely small and the converse. For in- 
 stance, let us suppose a body so small, abstractly, that it causes 
 a particular disturbance barely discernible ; this is the first con- 
 ceivable step above the limit downward. > Then suppose, apply- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 565 
 
 ing a kind of calculus, we gradually increase this body ; of course 
 the particular displacement must vary with the increment. On 
 the other hand, if we suppose a body so vast that it can not be 
 increased, and at the same time be comprehended, we are tlien 
 on the verge of the opposite limit. Pause a moment just here 
 and reflect. The universe of matter is before you — the blue 
 deeps of space are around you. Think of a grain of sand ; then, 
 by a regular progression, let your thoughts expand to the idea 
 of the tni verse. Well, what is the result? Your mental vision 
 is blurred, indistinct, inoperative. The diffusion becomes so 
 great that you actually cease to think ! This is in strict accord- 
 ance with our fourth proposition. Now for the scholium — the 
 sublime moral of these correlative propositions. 
 
 "Infinite diffusion is annihilation, annihilation is death j but 
 infinite diffusion brings, about the idea of infinity ; the true infinity 
 is God — there is no infinity but him; therefore we have but 
 demonstrated that 'no man can look upon God and live !' • 
 
 "We may build our theories until they reach the sky; but, 
 like the workmen of Babel, we will forget our own tongue. We 
 may go out after infinity ; but we travel in a circle. Circum- 
 scribed by humanity — mortality maturing but to decay — we 
 can really conceive of nothing in the proper sense of conception, 
 we can imagine nothing that is not subject to changCj born to 
 die, finite- in every sense of the word ! There is no affinity be- 
 tween the mortal and the immortal; there is no 'interchange 
 of energies' ^^ the one knows nothing of the other. This is why 
 the code of the Biblia sacra can not be amended, repealed^ or 
 questioned. 
 
 ' " In this short article, we have only aimed at suggestion. Let 
 the reader follow the train of ideas springing perforce from our 
 propositions, and he can not fail to be interested. A broad field 
 is opened. ' 
 
 "We had prepared elaborate mathematical discussions of 
 some of our propositions, but after mature deliberation we have 
 concluded that the formulae are entirely too abstruse for a maiga- 
 48 
 
S66 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 zine article. We hope the reader will be able to enter into the 
 spirit of our suggestions. In thg meantime, magna est Veritas 
 et prevalebit." 
 
 Mr. Thompson is specially devoted to mathematics; and, 
 without a teacher, successfully pursued the subject from arithme- 
 tic up to the higher departments, including integral a,nd differen- 
 tial calculus. He has a fine knowledge of the ancient classics, 
 and some acquaintance with Hebrew and its cognate Oriental 
 languages ; and reads some of the modem tongues. He reads 
 five languages. He is fond of speculative philosophy, being 
 devoted to Leibnitz and his school. Mr. Thompson's specula- 
 tive genius is peculiarly, and almost exclusively, retrospective. 
 It has little to do witll the. present, and nothing with the future. 
 He is a laudator temporis acti. He would doubtless appreciate 
 to the full the spleen to which Horace gave musical vent one 
 day during a fit of blues; and it will be in Mr. Thompson's own 
 style for us to quote the original :-^- 
 
 Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
 Nos qequiores, mox daturos 
 Progeijieni vitiosorvun. 
 
 Of course Horace was joking. But Mr. Thompson sees nothing 
 of the progressive and reforniative movements of to-day^he- 
 desires to see nothing. He is towards the past as Omar in 
 Alexandria was to the Koran. All the vital, restless, inquisitive 
 thinking of our time is to him all worthless trash and neologistic 
 nonsense. His mind is monumental. 
 
 In person Mr. Thompson is of slender form, about five feet 
 ten in height; having dark eyes and hair, a face rather thin 
 forehead high and broad. He is reserved in conversation, me- 
 thodical in thought, not a popular orator, and far more a closet- 
 student than a man of the every-day out-door world. He was 
 a Confederate officer in the late war. Has mai-ried since tlie 
 war. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 567 
 
 His chirograph \s cramped; but the. sweep is short and the 
 separately-made letters always distinguishable. It indicates 
 more persistence than strength, a fondness for the recondite, a 
 pervading self consciousness, and alimited degree of congeniaHty 
 of spirit — a dogged determination, a something like isolation, 
 and a passion for developing startling effects through quiet and 
 silent means. 
 
 JOHN R. THOMPSON. 
 
 Mr. Thompson has never published a book, yet his influence 
 upon our literature has been far greater than that of maaiy others 
 whohave made many books. 
 
 I consider him one of the best literary editors and critics in 
 the South, one of our best lecturers and writers of correspond- 
 ence, and a poet of fine ability,: culture, and position. He com- 
 bines scholarship with ability, cultivated taste, and industry. 
 
 He was born in Richmond, Virginia, on Thursday, the 23d of 
 October, 1823. His school education was received at East 
 Haven, in Connecticut. He graduated at the University of 
 Virginia in his twenty-second year ; and after two years of read- 
 ing he returned to the University, and took the degree of Bache- 
 lor of Laws in 1845. He practiced law about two years. For 
 fifteen years immediately preceding the war — since 1847, tliat 
 is to say — he was editor of The Seuthern Literary Messenger, the 
 longest-livedj and, in the main, the most successful of all the 
 Southern monthlies. In this position his numerous critiques, 
 book-notices, and essays updti liteisary points, were always well 
 put, able, just, and generous ; inclining to praise rather than the 
 contrary, yet rarely, if ever, espousing, in the Gilfillan style, the 
 fames of unfledged Muses. During the same period he produced 
 several poems for occasions, and essays in verse, delivered in 
 public ; among which I may mentqn Fatriotism [1856], a stir 
 ring poem; Virginia [1856], a graceful verse-tribute to a noble 
 
$68 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 state by a gifted son ; The Greek Slave; a poem delivered at 
 the inauguration of the statue of Washington, on Capitol Square, 
 in Richmond [1858] ; and Poesy, a handsome verse-essay, in 
 which he pays some clever tributes to several of our Southern 
 poets. He has also contributed numerous lyrics and other 
 smaller poems to various first-class literary periodicals, both 
 North and Soiith. As a poet his style is earnest, polished, and 
 even. 
 
 As a lecturer, he has appeared on several occasions, and al- 
 ways with sucess. - His immense fund of information, and the 
 ready adaptive faculty of his mind, render him eminently fitted 
 for this sphere, arid eminently successful in it. The one of 
 his lectures most attractive to myself personally, and upon a 
 subject best suited to his genius, was that delivered before the 
 Young Men's Christian Association in Richmond, during the 
 war, upon the Life arid Character of Edgar A. Poe. The lec- 
 turer's intimate personal acquaintance with Poe and the sphere 
 of Poe's genius and labours, together with the lecturer's liberal 
 views upon life and literature, and his broad catholic charity for 
 the eccentricities of his erratic brother's fevered but God-like 
 genius, made him pre-eminently the man to lecture on that sub- 
 ject, and made the lecture a masterpiece in its way. As a 
 lecturer, Mr. Thompson's style is pure, clear, vigorous, direct 
 and impressive. 
 
 As an editor and critical writer he stands, as I have said, 
 very high ; and his Style in this sphere of labour is as fine, as 
 polished, and oxnate, as that of any American writer that I 
 have read. 
 
 He was editor of The Record^ a short-lived Confederate 
 weekly, commenced during 1863, in Richmond. He was, 
 during its existence, the Richmond correspondent of The Index, 
 the Confederate organ in London. 
 
 As a poet Mr. Thompson is distinguished for his .polish, cor- 
 rect taste, and timeliness. He has, for his reputation for origi- 
 nality, written too many occasional poems ; and in this respect, 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 569 
 
 like Praed of England, and Thomas Davis of Ireland, he has sac- 
 rificed something" of status by serving too often the utilities of 
 occasion; and yet, the occasionals that he has thus written 
 could have been done as well by not more than two other men 
 in the S^uth, and better by none. 
 
 During the war Mr. Thompson wrote several poems of unusual 
 merit; two especially — the Battle Rainbow and Stuart — that 
 are very fine. I have space for only one of these, and select 
 the former, which is the shorter. It was written just after the 
 Seven Days of Blood before Richmond in 1862, and is based 
 upon the fact — ^ poem in itself — that on the evening that 
 preceded the commencement of that "long week of glory and 
 agony," a magnificent rainbow, after a grand thunder storm, 
 " overspread the eastern sky, exactly defining the. position of the 
 Confederate army, as seen from the capitol at Richmond." I 
 give the entire poem : — 
 
 The warm, weary day was departing ■ — the smile 
 Of the sunset gave token the tempest had ceased. 
 
 And the lightning yet fitfully gleamed for a while 
 On the cloud that sank sullen and dark in the east. 
 
 There our army, awaiting the terrible fight 
 
 Of the morrow, lay hopeful and watching and still; 
 
 Where their tents all the region had sprmkled with white. 
 From river to river, o'er meadow and hill. 
 
 While atove them the fierce cannonade of the sky 
 
 Blazed and burst from the vapours that muffled the sun. 
 
 Their "counterfeit clamours" gave forth no reply; 
 And slept till the battle, the charge in each gun. 
 
 When ,lo ! on the cloud, a miraculous thing ! 
 
 Broke in beauty the rainbow our host to enfold ; 
 The centre o'erspread by its arch, and each wing 
 
 Suffused virith its azure and crimson and gold. 
 48* 
 
S70 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Blest omen of victory, symbol divine 
 
 Of peace after tumult, repose after paon,; 
 How sweet aiid how glowmg with promise the sign 
 
 To eyes that should never behold it aga.in ■! 
 
 For the fierce flame of war on the morrow flashed out. 
 And its thunder peals filled all the; tremulous air : 
 
 Over slipp'ry entrenchment and reddened redoubt 
 Rung the wild cheer of triumph, the cry of despair. 
 
 Then a long week of glory and agony came — 
 Of mute supplication and yearning and dread ; 
 
 When day .unto day gave the record of fame, 
 And night, unto night gave the list of its dead. 
 
 We had triumphed — the foe had fled back to his ships. 
 His standard in rags and his legions a wreck — 
 
 But alas L the stark faces and colourless lips 
 
 Of our loved ones gave triumph's rejoicing a check. 
 
 Not yet, oh not yet, as a sign of release. 
 
 Had the Lord set in mercy his bow in the cloud ; 
 
 Not yet had the Comforter whispered of peace 
 To the hearts that around us lay bleeding and bo'vred. 
 
 But the promise was given — the beautiful ara, ^ 
 With its brilliant confusion of colours that spanned 
 
 The sky on that exquisite eve, was the mark 
 Of the Infinite Love overarching the land : 
 
 And that Love, shining richly and full as the day, 
 
 Thro' the tear-drops that moisten each martyr's proud pall, 
 
 On the gloom of the past the bright bow shall displ9.y 
 Of Freedom, Peace, Victory, bent over all. 
 
 The sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas are especially fine ; and 
 one of these, the seventh, is equal to anything of its kind that 
 the war has produced. 
 
 The threnody on Stuariis also a fine poem, but is too long — 
 nineteen stanzas-^- for quotation here. A single stanza will 
 show the tone : — 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 57i 
 
 No wailing trarapet afid no tolling bell, 
 
 No cannon, save the battle's boom receding, 
 
 When Stuart to the grave we bore might tell, 
 With hearts all crushed and bleeding. 
 
 Ashby is also a fine war-song. I quote it as illustrative of 
 our poet's war vein : — 
 
 To the biave all homage render, 
 
 Weep, ye skies of June \ 
 With a radiance pure and tender, 
 
 Shine, oh saddened moon ! 
 "Dead upon the field. of glory," 
 Hero fit for song and story, ; 
 
 Lies our bold dragoon. 
 
 Well they learned whose hands have slain him. 
 
 Braver, kriightlier foe 
 Never fought with Moor nor Paynim — 
 
 Rode at Templestowe ; 
 With a mien how higli and joyous, 
 'Gainst the hordes that would ,destory us 
 
 Went he forth we know. 
 
 Never more, alas ! shall sabre 
 
 Gleam around his crest ; 
 Fought' his fight ; fulfilled his labour ; 
 
 Stilled his manly breast. ' 
 All unheard sweet Nature's cadence. 
 Trump of fame fl,nd voice of maidens. 
 
 Now he talces his rest. 
 
 Earth that all too soon hath bound him. 
 
 Gently wrap his clay ; 
 Linger lovingly around him 
 
 Ligljit of dying day j • ^ 
 Softly ifall the summer showers, 
 Birds and bees among the flowert 
 
 Make the gloom seem gay. 
 
572 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 TIjere, throughout the coming ages, 
 , When his sword is rust. 
 
 And his deeds in classu: pages, 
 
 Mindful of her trust. 
 Shall Virginia, bending lowly. 
 Still a ceaseless vigil holy 
 
 Keep above his dust ! 
 
 Of his earlier poems I quote a simple little lyric, as piquant 
 as Praed, as natural and unaffected as Mrs. Welby, as tender 
 as Mrs. Osgood, and as true as Wordsworth. It is called A 
 Picture, and is as follows : — 
 
 Across the narrow, dusty street, 
 
 I see, at early dawn, 
 A little girl with glancing feet, 
 
 As agile as the fawn. 
 
 An hour or so and forth she goes, 
 
 The school she brightly seeks j 
 She carries in her hand a rose. 
 
 And two upon her cheeks. 
 
 The sUn mounts up the torrid sky — 
 
 The bell for dinner rings -^ 
 My little friend, with laughing eye 
 
 Comes gaily back and sings. . 
 
 The week wears off, and Saturday, 
 
 A welcome day, I ween. 
 Gives time for girlish romp and play — 
 
 How glad, my pet is seen ! 
 
 But Sunday — in what satins great 
 
 Does she not then appear ! 
 King Solmon, in all his state. 
 
 Wore no such pretty gear. 
 
 I fling her every day a kiss, 
 
 And one she flings to me, 
 I know not truly when it is 
 
 She prettiest may be. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 573 
 
 Those who have enjoyed The Autocrat of the Bredkfast TaUe 
 will see, in the second two verses of the second stanza, where 
 Professor Hohnes got a pretty idea, of which he makes very 
 effective use. 
 
 In person Mr. Thompson is a small and slender man, of easy 
 manner ; dresses with marked taste ; has an engaging and steady 
 blue eye, and a voice low, earnest, and brisk, with a well defined 
 emphasis in talking ; converses well ; wears American whiskers 
 of neutral yellowish color ; has hair darker, and thin, with an 
 approach towards baldness. Is not married. 
 
 His chirograph is calligraphic; very legible, with an English air 
 about it. It indicates originality in thought, with a decided con- 
 servatism in character, a Poe-like clearness of expression, a per-, 
 sistent aspiration, and an earnestness that submerges sensibility 
 in its directness. 
 
 I have rarely seen a finer clurograph. He writes with a quill 
 pen. 
 
 During the war -^ in 1864, I believe — Mr. Thompson's 
 health having failed he travelled in Europe for his health. 
 
 After the war he remained a year or two in London, and was 
 said to be connected with the editorial staff of the London 
 Herald, at the same time contributing to The Cornhill Magazine 
 and Blackwood. He is at present resident in New York city, 
 engaged upon the editonal staff of The Evening Post. 
 
 h 
 
 WILLIAM THEODORE THOMPSON. 
 
 Col. Thompson is a resident and, I believe, a native of Sa- 
 vannah, Georgia. His main distinction has been in the editorial 
 line, though the world knows him as the author of that gro- 
 tesquely humorous creation. Major Jones. 
 
 The books published by Col. Thompson are: — 
 
 I. Major Jones's Courtship), — detailed, with other scenes, in- 
 
S74 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 cidents, and adventures, in a series of letters by himself. Every- 
 body^- and everybody, at least in America, has read tliis book 
 — has laughed over the genuine Georgia humour that appears 
 on every page of it — coarse, uncultivated, vulgar, one may say ; 
 but yet genuine and original American humour. It appeared 
 originally about 1840. 
 
 2. Major Jone£s Sketches of TViZw/,— comprising scenes, inci. 
 dents, and adventures, in his tour from Georgia to Canada. 
 This is like its predecessor — coarse, broad, and Georgian, but 
 very funny. 
 
 3. Major /ones' s Chronicles of Pineville, — embracing sketches 
 of Georgia scenes, incidents, and characters ; published in 1843. 
 This is in the same vein as the other two ; but had less popu- 
 larity, possibly because the vein had been worked so long. 
 
 These books have enjoyed a popularity — and with such works 
 popularity is success — beyond any other of their class. Various 
 imitations have followed them, but none have reached the origi- 
 nals. 
 
 Col. Thompson is to-day editor of the Savannah News and 
 Herald, having recently returned from a European tour. 
 
 F. O. TICKNOR. 
 
 Dr. TiCKNOR of Columbus, Georgia, has written extensively 
 for the periodical press of the South, mostly occasional poems ; 
 of which The Virginians of the Valley — otherwise named The 
 Knights of the Valley — is the most widely and most favourably 
 known. I give it entire : — 
 
 The knightUest of the knightly race, 
 
 Who, since the days of old, 
 Have kept the lamp of chivalry 
 
 Alight in hearts of gold ; 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THM SOt/rH. 5 75 
 
 The Jdndliest of the kindly band. 
 
 Who, rarely hating ease, 
 Yet rode with Spotswood round the land. 
 
 And Raleigh round the seas. 
 
 Who climbed the Ijlije Virginian hills. 
 
 Against embattled foes, 
 And planted there, in valleys fair. 
 
 The lily and the rose ; 
 Whose fragrance lives in many lands. 
 
 Whose beauty stars the earth, 
 And lights the hearts of many homes 
 
 With loveliness and worth. 
 
 We thought they slept ! the sons who kept 
 
 The names of noble sires. 
 And slumbered while the darkness crept ' 
 
 Around the vigil fires. 
 But still the Golden Horse-shoe Knights 
 
 Their Old Dominion keep. 
 Whose foes have found enchanted ground. 
 
 But not a knight asleep. 
 
 MRS. GIDEON TOWNSEND. 
 
 'K 
 
 Mrs. TowNSEND, nee Van Voorhis, is an adoptive daughter 
 of the South, having been bom at Lyons, in Wayne County, Nev/ 
 York. She is resident in New Orleans; and contributes fre- 
 quently to Southern periodicals in general, but especially to 
 those of the Crescent City. She is related and connected to 
 many of the leading families of the Southwest ; and is widely 
 known and admired as a gifted element in the highest ■ circles of 
 cultivated society in that region. 
 
 Her works are : — 
 
 I. The Brother Clerks, a Tale of New Orleans, — was pub- 
 lished in New York, by Derby & Jackson, I believe, just before 
 the war. It found an extensive and ready sale. 
 
576 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 . 2. I'oems. This volume has been made ready, I am advised, 
 for publication, but has not yet appeared. ' 
 
 Mrs. Townsend has used several noms de plume — Xariffa, 
 her best-known guise, Mary Ashly, Henry Rip, Crab Crossbones, 
 and Michael O Quills. Some of her fugitive satires upon social 
 e\ils have been attributed to masculine brains ; and yet she is 
 altogether womanly, both in manner and in heart. Pathos, wit, 
 and vigour mark her productions in an eminent degree ; while 
 hsx forte as to them seems to be a peculiar species of satire com- 
 pounded of half irony and half earnestness. Her Penny Dip, a 
 prose sketeh, has been deservedly admired as the best satire of 
 its kind that we have — the best and wittiest, plea for babies that 
 has ever circulated through Southern ephemeral literature. Her 
 blank verse is remarkable for its ease, vigour, and spirit. Ex- 
 cepting Mrs. McCord, I believe, she is the only writer of her 
 sex in the South who has achieved any noteworthy success in 
 this difficult branch of the poetic art. 
 
 Mrs. Townsend' s chirograph bears testimony to her literary 
 character. It is ligible, with no trace of feebleness nor any of 
 coarseness, direct, and free from affectation and flourish. She 
 punctuates as clear thinkers do, and does not disfigure her MS. 
 with fantastic flourishes designed to be ornamental. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT. 
 
 Everything that Mr. Trescot has published, with the excep- 
 tion of some tribute-memoirs, relates to diplomacy ; and upon 
 this subject he is universally felt to be the highest authority in 
 the South. 
 
 He is the author of — 
 
 1. Diplomacy of the Revolution; an Historical Study. A 
 duodecimo. Published in New York, 1852. 
 
 2. Letter on the Diplomatic System of the United States. 
 1854- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SVVTH. 577 
 
 3. Diplomatic Histiory of the Administration of Washington 
 and Adams, 1789 — 1801. A duodecinjo, published in 1857. 
 
 Mr. Trescot is a native of Charleston, South Carolina ; and 
 was born about 1823. He has repeatedly served in the State 
 Legislature, and always commands large influence. His English 
 is the best heard in those legislative assembhes ; indeed, he is one 
 of the few public men who invariably use pure and correct lan- 
 guage. 
 
 In person he is short ; hair dark, a little thinning ; wears mous- 
 tache ; nose aquiline and prominent ; eyes blue-grey ; his man- 
 ner earnest and impressive ; talks much, easily, and well. 
 
 Mr. Trescot's chirograph is legible, free from all flourishes and 
 aifectation, direct, quiet, fluent, and passionless. It indicates 
 clearness of thought, purity, absence of bombast and circumlocu- 
 tion, a certain energy and concentration of thought, without 
 enthusiasm, and without great unity of purpose. 
 
 MRS. MARY E. TUCKER. 
 
 Mrs. Tucker made her d&but as an author in the publication 
 of a neat little volume entitled Poems, early in the year 1867. 
 
 Of this work the author herself, in a graceful and pertinent 
 preface, says : — 
 
 " Out of a simple woman's heart these rivulets of rhyme have 
 run. They may not be great, nor broad, nor deep. She trust- 
 they are pure. She wrote these verses often in sorrow, per- 
 plexity, and distress. . . . She will feel rewarded if, tliough 
 these buds and flowers be not very beautiful, they give to any soul 
 the perfume of simple truthfulness and genuine feeling." 
 
 The editor of The Home Monthly of Nashville thus notices the 
 author and her book : — , 
 
 " Her poem^ are neither broad, nor deep, nor brilliant. If you 
 look into her volume for new ideas, philosophic thought, glowing 
 imagery, deep insight into passions and motives, or an intense 
 49 
 
578 LIVING WRITETIS OF THE SOVTB. 
 
 love of nature, you will be disappointed. - But they are pure, sim- 
 ple, natural — tlie outgushings of a true woman's heart, sympai 
 thetic, kind, loving, truthful. While reading them, you feel that 
 you are in communion with an innocent, noble-hearted, Christiail 
 woman. There is no cant, no twaddle, no morbid sentimentality 
 — a negative merit, always appreciated by a healthful reader. 
 Her volume belongs to that respectable class of books which 
 afford pleasure, comfort, and recreation ; in their brief life, doing 
 some good, but no harm ; cheering some lonely, heart-sick wan- 
 direr ; sending out into the darkness a single ray of heavenly 
 sight, which may guide some poor, benighted soul amid the pit- 
 falls of sin; adding one sweet note to the grand symphony of joy, 
 and praise, and thanksgiving, swelHng up from the hearts of all 
 that are glad, and pure, and innocent on earth." 
 
 There is a great deal of truth and point in what he says. 
 
 Mrs. Tucker's second effort at book-making is her Life of 
 Mark M. Pomeroy, published by Carleton in 1868. The defini- 
 tion of her subject is " A Representative Young Man of America, 
 his Early History, Character and Public Services in Defence of 
 the Rights of States, Rights of the People, and the Interests of 
 Workingmen," — which is characteristic, to say the least of it. 
 The work is " prepared from materials furnished by Mr. Pome-" 
 roy and others." The Statesman newspaper says : " This book 
 makes the best personal history of brass extant. " The newspa- 
 per world knows Mr. Pomeroy only as Brick Pomeroy j and the 
 slang of the name, which slang belongs to the man, seems to 
 have been infiltrated through everything pertaining to him, Mrs. 
 Tucker's book among the rest. 
 
 As an illustrative piece I give Only a Blush as one containing' 
 a happily-advanced conceit, and upon the whole a striking little 
 poem : — 
 
 Only a blush ! ' O'er the cheek it swept, 
 
 In a tint, but a shade more bright. 
 While over the forehead the soft glow crept, 
 
 Like Aurora's roseate light. 
 
LIVIHTG WRITERS OJ' THE SOUTH. S79 
 
 Only a bhish. 1 'Twas a single vrard : ; : 
 
 That the heart's deep fountain woke, '. 
 
 - And in turbulent gushes, its depths were stirred, 
 For the lips were loyed that spoke. 
 
 Only a blush ! Yet the glow revealed 
 That ,she loved him, and with pride. 
 
 In the armour of many a conquest steel'd. 
 He lingered near her side. 
 
 And breathed into her credulous ear. 
 
 In the whim of an idle hour. 
 Vows never forgotten by those wlio hear 
 . When subjected to Love's cruel power. 
 
 Only a blush! Long it Imgered there 
 
 And assumed a hectic token, 
 When the vows that woke it had vanislied in air. 
 
 And the maiden's heart was broken. 
 
 Speak to Her Tenderly is full of charity, and by no means 
 devoid of poetry : — 
 
 Speak to her tenderly, taunt her not now, 
 Tho' a million of sins have deep fmrowed her browj 
 Greet her with kindpess. Her once raven hair 
 Is frosted with silver time's hands have left there. 
 
 Cheeks now so colourless, bloomed lUce the rose ; 
 Lips now all tremulous, spoke but repose ; 
 Dim eyes, all clouded with fountains pf tears. 
 Were like the young fawn's eyes in long agone years. 
 
 Speak to her tenderly. How can you know 
 
 Why bowed her young soul 'neath temptation's fell blow? 
 
 It may be that poverty planted the seed — 
 
 Tears nourished its growth. Pride matured the rank weed. 
 
 It may be, she loved, tho' unwisely, too weU ; 
 It may be, the serpent allured, with his spell. 
 That from his sweet charming she woke but to know 
 The death in life sorrow — the all-alone woe. 
 
(S;8o LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 It may be, in aiming, she erred but to save 
 A dear qne from filling want's desolate grave; 
 .Perchance some unkindness first drove to despair,— 
 A manly heart saved her, she wept her grief there. 
 
 Then judge not too harshly. Remorse's heavy hand 
 
 Is a terrible stricture — an icy-cold band : 
 
 Long 'years of repentance, of praying, and pain. 
 
 And the blood of the Saviour, have cleansed her from stain ! 
 
 Mrs. Tucker is a Q«orgiaii ; but has been in New-York city 
 for two or three years, engaged in the publication of her volumes. 
 She is thoroughly Southern in all her feelings ; and gives utter- 
 ance to these in some of the most vigorous poems in her 
 book. 
 
 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE TURNER. 
 
 The author oijack Hopeton lives at Eatonton, Georgia. He 
 was bom in that county — Putnam — on the 25th of September, 
 1830. His education, embracing die ancient classics and French, 
 was mainly received at an academy situated upon the family 
 seat of his ancestry — Turn wold — where to-day sleep five gener- 
 ations of the T;iumers. Before he had reached manhood he was 
 called to the superintendence of his father's planting interests; 
 and in conjunction with his elder brother, Joseph Addison, this 
 employment, varied by a good deal of field sporting, occupied 
 about four years. One year then — 1850 — lue devoted to plant- 
 ing in partnership with his brother ; then a year to .law study, 
 followed by a long adventurous tour throu^ the West ; a brief 
 period of law practice at Americus, Georgia, in 1853; a return 
 to Turn wold on account of the death of his father j and his estab- 
 lishment of a school ; and a Nothern tour. This brings us ovei 
 the period of the composition oiJackHopeton — 1854 and 1855 — 
 and to the opening of die war of secession. During the war he 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 581 
 
 served as a lieutenant and as an adjutant of infantry in several 
 spirited engagements in North Carolina ; was retired for a couple 
 of years on account of illiiess; re-entered service in 1864 as a 
 volunteer, although exempt under the law, and served until the 
 dose of the war as an artillerist. - He then returned to the pater- 
 nal estates and resumed agricultural pursuits ; but in the course 
 of a year or so gave them into the hands of tenants and removed 
 to the town of Eatonton, where he now lives. 
 
 Mr. Turner's literary career has been recreational and his 
 labours occasional. He Jias npt devoted himself to it at all 
 regularly, it always being his avocation, never his vocation. 
 He has written for \De Boitis Review, The Independent Press, 
 The Field and Fireside, and a number of other Southern period- 
 icals; and at one time assisted in the editorial conduct of The 
 Countryman. 
 
 Jack Hopeton was written, as stated above, in 1855 ; and ap- 
 peared in ^ feuilleton,Q^ The Field and Fireside, then published 
 a,t Augusta, Georgia. In i860 it was issued in book form from the 
 press of vDerby &. Jackson. I believe its success was good, 
 though the on-coming war no doubt operated against it. It is 
 a stor}' of Southern life, college adventure, watering-place re- 
 creations, love, villany, treachery, and happiness. The locale 
 of the story is principally in Georgia and Virginia. The charac- 
 ters are true to their localities and presented here with great 
 vigour and purity of language. The dramatic interest is well 
 sustained and never descends to the sensational — keeps a strong 
 tension of dramatic interest without straining it to the melodra- 
 matic. The narrative and Itfe delineated are both healthy and 
 give us true representations of Southern life, both domestic and 
 societal. The scope of the book is that of Bulwer's great trilogy 
 beginning with The Caxtons— to give illustrations of life in the 
 locality treated of— and the success achieved is clearly indicative 
 of gifts in that way. The author does not subordinate every- 
 thing to action and movement, as does Gilmore Simms ; nor 
 does he subordinate everything to style, when style is synony- 
 49* 
 
S8« ZIVING. WRITEMS. OF TITE SOUTHL 
 
 inouswith pedantic declamation, as does the erudite author of 
 Beul<A. 
 
 In person, Mr. Turner is tall Mid slender; about six feet high; 
 has. dark 'though not black hair; and wears generally a slight 
 black moustache and imperial. In his dress he is scrupulously 
 neat and tidy: In his moral relations to the neighbodi he is, 
 conscientious almost to a fault. 
 
 MISS MARY J. S. UPSHUR. 
 
 This young writei- of the Old Dominion has made the nanie 
 of Fanny Fielding familiar to all readers of Southern periodiciai 
 literature. Her most elaborate productfon is Confederate Notes, 
 which appeared serially in The Home Monthly during the year 
 1867. The title conveys an idea of thd work, which is written 
 witli great vigour, and gives true portraitures of striking scenes 
 in stirring times. ' It is soon to be pubhshed in book form. 
 Her first story -^ tale, rather 'than novel — was FlOrine de 
 G'enlisi She has written for every respectable literal^ journal 
 of the South and many of the North, as well as foi^several politi- 
 cal newspapers. Her various noms de flume are Fanny Field- 
 ing, Virginia Norfolk, Byrd English, axiABarthurstSHth. This 
 use of many names has tended to render her reputati<M less 
 than it should be. ~ " : 
 
 She was bom at Rose Cottage — the old Upshur homestead— 
 in Accomack County, Virginia. This site is on the baiiks of 
 the Watchaprigue, On the Eastern Shore. Here the eternal 
 ocean-music of the "billowy dash" seems to have early called 
 forth her powers of song. Miss Upshur's mother* had been 
 Miss Wilson of Richmond) and through her she received the 
 blood of the Popes and the Duvalls. ' Her father— William 
 Stith Upshur— inherited hiS' name directly; from his maternal 
 grandfather, and more remotely from his ancestor — William 
 ■Stith, the Virginia historian— one of the first presidents of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 583 
 
 William and Mary College in that state. Her education was 
 conducted entirely by her father, she having been orphaned of 
 her mother while an infant. During her early years the family 
 moved to Norfolk, where she has ever since resided. 
 
 Her theory of art is that all use is beauty ; and, par conse- 
 quent, that, if we take proper care of the useful, the beautiful 
 will not suffer; is .passionately fond of niusic, flowers, and 
 pictures, and lives much in such society ; has some degree of 
 directness and strengtla in her style that are rarely found in her 
 sex, and yet is one of tjie most imaginative of our female poets. 
 
 The Richmond Whig, speaking of the Confederate Notes, men- 
 tioned above, says : " Indeed, the broad historic character of 
 ihe work gives it far more than a local interest. Its chief aim 
 seems to be a demonstration of the clerical element in its re- 
 lations to the late Southern army ; and in 'the person of the 
 Rev. Tucker Randolph, some time rector of St. Jude's, then 
 militant under the Sputhern Cross, we have a very faithful 
 illustration of the principle which moved many in those days to 
 link the sword with the crosier. The liigh-flown harangues 
 which characterize his sentences at the outset become merged 
 into the natural and life-like as we go on and find ordinary 
 events lost in the current of the terrible and earnest." 
 
 Miss Upshur's handwriting is firm, uniform, clear, and in a 
 singular way antique. It indicates these quaUties, which give 
 the character directness, frankness, and reverence for the past 
 — a prejudice in favour of that which is old, a fondness for le- 
 gendary lore, ■ a disposition to defer to precedents, and that 
 English feeling of establishment that in our South is the rocky 
 shore against which tlie ocean of radicalism is beating and will 
 continue to beat until one or the other yield. 
 
 The poem of Margaret is one of Miss Upshur's best, and 
 is, as a critic has said of ' it, "conceived ,in the very spirit 
 of Poesy itself;" biit I do not approve the "use here made of 
 "ye." I quote entire ; ^^ , 1 
 
584 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 O Margaret, pretty Margaret, 
 
 I pray ye linger yet 
 At the stile beyond the hay-field 
 
 When the summer sun is set. 
 And I'U tell ye in the twilight 
 
 What ye never shall forget. 
 
 O Maigaret, sweet Margaret, 
 
 With fece so lily fair. 
 The sunbeams loved to nestle 
 
 In the meshes of her hair. 
 And gleam and gleam more golden 
 
 From the light they borrowed there. 
 
 O Margaret, sweet Margaret, 
 With eyes of violet blue ; 
 
 Or, when she looked most lovingly. 
 Of that celestial hue 
 
 The heavens show when doud-gates ope 
 • To let the good pass through. 
 
 O Margaret, merry MM'garet, 
 Beyond the meadow mill 
 
 My heart will listen, listen. 
 For your gentle tripping still — 
 
 All of its pit-pat echoes waking. 
 As of old, at your sweet will. 
 
 But Margaret, sweet Margaret, 
 Ye'll never come again, 
 
 Like the spring-time after winter. 
 Like the sunshine after rain ; 
 
 But I could kiss the blessed dust 
 Where your sweet form hath lain. 
 
 But Margaret, sainted Margaret, 
 The hay-field and the mill. 
 
 The meadow path, its windings, 
 And its little running rill. 
 
 Will speak more lovingly of you 
 Than the graveyard all so still. 
 
LiVJ^G WRITERS OF THE SOUTff. 585 
 
 And Margaret, blessed Margaret, 
 
 In my heart's love-lacking de^th, 
 I'll look upon the sunshine 
 
 And the flowers that strew the earth. 
 And I'U think I see in each of them 
 
 The types of your new birth.. 
 
 Then Margaret, sweet Margaret, 
 
 Like sunshine after fain. 
 Like summer after winter, 
 
 Ye will glad my heart again. 
 For I'll say they are your messengers. 
 And they shall not speak in vain. 
 
 MRS. ADA REEDY "VANCE. 
 
 Many of my readers will recognise the following little poem 
 as one they have seen before — 
 
 When you meet virith one suspected 
 
 Of some secret deed of shame. 
 And for this by all rejected 
 
 As a thing of evil fame. 
 Guard thine every look and action ; 
 
 Speak no word of heartless blame ; 
 For the slanderer's vile detraction 
 
 Yet may ssx^your goodly name. 
 
 When you meet a brow that's awing 
 
 In its wrinkled lines of gloom. 
 And a haughty step that's drawing 
 
 To a solitary tomb. 
 Guard thine action. Some great sorrow 
 
 Made that man a spectre grim; 
 And the sunset of to-morrow, ' 
 
 Friend, may leave j/om like to him. 
 
 When you meet with bife pursuing 
 
 Paths the lost have entered in. 
 Working out his own undoing 
 
 With his recklessness and sin, 
 
S86 LJVmO WRITERS OF THE SOVTfl. 
 
 Think, if placed in his condition,'. 
 Would a kind lyord be in vain. 
 Or a look Of cold suspicion 
 ,; Win you back to hope again? 
 
 There are spots that bear no flowers, 
 
 Not "Secaiise the soil is bad. 
 But that summer's genial showers 
 
 Nevei; made their bosoms glad. 
 Better have an act that's kaidly ; 
 
 Treated sometimes with disd^ 
 Than by judging others blindjy 
 
 Doom the innocent to pain. 
 
 A few years before the war it went the rounds of the news- 
 paper world in the United States as a waif, entitled Charity, 
 credited to the London Journal. It was assumed to be Eng- 
 lidj, and was, appreciated accordingly. , Its- refleptive^ character 
 was thought to indicate mature, if not advanced age iij its aujhor. 
 
 So much for what Poe flouts as "internal evidence." 
 
 The history of 'this little poem is noteworthy. The editor 
 of the Jackson Mississipplan gave it during the poem's early 
 notoriety. It had been published originally, and under the 
 author's full name, in his paper; had made its ; way somehow to 
 England ; and •vyas reproduced there as an original contribution 
 to the London Journal. It was upon its return to America 
 that it went the roundS of the press so extensively. 
 
 The author wh9„ received this unusual and high though 
 merited compliment, was then a ^I in her teens — Miss Sallie 
 Ada Reedy of Lelcington, Mississippi. 
 
 She was born in the northern part of Alabama. Her father. 
 Captain James' ' Reedy, moved from Alabama to Lexington, 
 during the infancy of our young poetess. 
 
 In addition to. a liberal education, Miss Reedy enjoyed the 
 advantages of extensive American travel ; ha,ving visited most 
 places of note between the Canada line and Texas. With a 
 soul alive to beauty, she had read largely, in the great To 
 KaXov such lessons as one reads by river and by mountain; 
 
LIVING WRITEKS OF THE SOUTH. 587 
 
 J 
 
 among the Highlands of tlie Hudson, the picturesque Blue 
 Ridge, the varied Alleghany, and the darker Cumberland; in 
 the prairies of the southwest ; along La Belle Rivilre, the 
 romping Tennessee, the mystically-musical Pascagoula, and in 
 the presence of the grand ocean-river that bisects our continent, 
 the great Father of Waters; by the ocean itself; down amidst 
 the dark and tortuous depths of the Mammoth Cave, with its 
 Mystic River ; and ainidsf the misty and tremulous tiiunders of 
 Niagara the Divine. 
 
 Amidst such teachings as these, her young genius was reared 
 from the real to the ideal. From these, and from all such, she 
 has drawn inspiration. They have not developed in her, how- 
 ever, the passion for merely descriptive poetry — the lowest 
 result of scenographic influences. This is not at a;ll in her vein. 
 Her genius is subjective, and her mood reflective. The impulse 
 nurtured in her by these inspiring influences — the impulse to 
 create beauty for other souls, the yearning to utter the melodies 
 vibrating within — is perceptible in all that she has written. 
 
 Her genius is subjective; and even in narrative verse the 
 events are abvays subordinated to the soul-drama that moves 
 along with them — that controls them — that is always felt to be 
 the tresis proper of her poem. 
 
 I have elsewhere [See Women of the South Distinguished in 
 Literature, page 435, where the language is quoted] said of Miss 
 Reed/s genius : — 
 
 " Tiiere breathes in all her writings an impassioned devotion, 
 intense and pure, with a simplicity tender and graceful. This is 
 the true region of emotional poet-life — the humaq in its warmest 
 aspiration for. the supra-human ideal. Her genius is vigorous, 
 and at the same tinje exquisitely feminine, looking down upon 
 life's struggling waters from woman's headland of catholic charity. 
 Mystery — the nameless and never told — often lends a spell, 
 dreary yet djelicious, to her Muse. But tliis characteristic is al- 
 ways subordinate to the wealth of her creative faculty." 
 
 She wrote early. An intuitive sense of inelody, rather than 
 
S88 I.IVJNQ WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 rigid art-study, has rendered her versificatioQ sangnlarly musical 
 and correct. In these respects, whole poems of her girlish com- 
 position are as correct as mature art could make them. Her 
 later productions bear evidence of stricter culture in verse-art, 
 and among these are they that will live in our literature ; and 
 with the saipe advantage her future writings are to come to us. 
 Those who have any sense of discrimination between felt and 
 fancied feeling m poems— between actual and factitious feeling 
 — will probably agree with me finding the former in the follow- 
 ing lyric. It impresses one with a something of sincerity^ — a 
 power springing from a power felt in its composition. I cannot 
 see that I am making any unmeet disclosure in stating tkat the 
 poem relates to a real circumstance — to the death of a favou- 
 rite, I believe an only brother. It was published under the 
 title of 
 
 DEATH BY THE WAYSIDE. 
 
 This life is stranger tban the tales we read, 
 
 Or dreams that poets have ere yet they sleep ; 
 If truth were written we would have no need 
 
 To turn to fiction when we wish to weep. 
 If we might place the ear close to each heart 
 
 And hear the dull pulsation grief ha? stirred, 
 No swift compulsion emnity might start 
 
 Could force the lips to frame an unkind word. 
 
 You may have tears — I do not ask them now; 
 
 Enough of these have been already shed 
 For him who wore perchance as fair a brow 
 
 As ever found repose amid the dead. 
 His was a face that one would strive to read. 
 
 And then rejoice to find the task in vain. 
 Because a failure 'brought the pleasfint need 
 
 Of looking on those features once again. 
 
 And yet when joy or passion's tide rose high 
 There was a. sudden flush — a fever breath; 
 
 A restless flashing of the brilliant eye 
 That told of madness, or an early death; 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH: 589 
 
 That something which the heart cannbt define, 
 But knowing fears — and fearing loves tlie more. 
 
 We know a heart in love with things divi«e. 
 Qft finds the earth np hospitable shore. 
 
 But to my story, and it should be, brief 
 
 As that young life it dares to' speak' of here. 
 Or yet despair may whisper through a grief 
 
 That long since shed its last remaining tear. 
 He left his home and soi^ht another sky. 
 
 Perhaps as blue, but, oh, not half so kind. 
 As one that held its stars serenely high 
 
 Above the troubled hearts that watched beliind. 
 
 But from the 4epths of that unholy wild 
 
 Unto his home he never came 9gain, 
 For Fate pursued the footsteps of her child, 
 
 And eyes that watched his coming, watched in vain. 
 In the' cold bosom of that stranger land 
 
 There is a grave from other graves apart ; 
 On God's green earth there is a blood-red hand 
 
 Stained with the ctimson of that high young l^eart. 
 
 And this is all. The fearful cloud of wrath 
 
 That folds within the lightning's fiery breath, 
 With burning eye marks out its downward path. 
 
 And in one moment scatters it wdth death. 
 The stars may come with evening's tranquil air, 
 
 And beam as brightly as their wont before. 
 But from some fragrant bower we've reared with care 
 
 Is snatched a fragrant flower that blooms no more. 
 
 Oh, ye who have a brother — lover — friend 
 
 Faint on the threshold of an unlcnown land, 
 If ye may come and o'er that death-couch bend. 
 
 And close the eyes and fold the nerveless hands. 
 Ye have no cause for tears ! He might have died. 
 
 His fair brow pressed to some imholy sod, 
 With none to weep, and none to watch beside 
 
 Save one whose steel had sent that soul to God. 
 
 5° 
 
S90 LIVJNG WRITERS. OF ,Tff£ SOUTff, 
 
 If lyric tragedy has anything more vivid than all this, I do not 
 rememb.er where it occurs. It occasionally reminds one of the 
 finest starthng horror-glares of Harry Flash— 'those thrilling 
 touches of his that make one start and shudder with a nameless 
 and undefined hprror. This passage is very fine in this vague 
 and awe-suggesting vein : — 
 
 In the cold bosoni of that stranger land 
 There is a grave from other graves apart ; 
 
 On God's green earth there is a blood-red hand 
 Stained virith the crimson of that high young heart. 
 
 The close of the poem, too, is intensely suggestive of that 
 lonely, helpless, uilliallowed, hopeless, and shuddering mystery 
 of violent death, from which all natufe shrinks witfi unwhispered 
 but controlling dread. 
 
 I teg leave to present the following poem as one of the finest 
 allegorical lyrics that I have seen in American literature, pre- 
 mising thalt I do not rank the allegory high in the domain of 
 poetry. The poem was published under the name of The Sisters; 
 but I am inclined to prefer a more specific title and to call it 
 Love and Sorrow. Let the reader take his choice of titles. The 
 poem is as foHows : — 
 
 Those were iiot mortals standing ther? 
 
 With eyes bent on a sleeping diild. 
 Who, all unconscious of their care. 
 
 Saw dreams at which his red lips smiled. 
 And one was blue-eyed, with a face 
 
 Round which the brown, hair closely curled, 
 With such a soft bewitching grace 
 
 It might have maddened half the world. 
 
 The other's meejc eyes, raised above, 
 
 Seemed peering in the strange to-inorrow ; 
 
 The brown-haired, blue^eyed one was Love ; 
 The other was her. sister, Sprrow. 
 
LtJrrNG WRTTERS OF THE SOUTH. 591 
 
 And Lovtfs bright wiiigs flawed here and ttere — 
 
 You looked to see her float away; • 
 The other's folded down with care. 
 
 As if prepared for longer stay. 
 
 "Now, sister, give me this fair bdy," 
 
 The blue-eyed angel gently said', 
 "A bosom sbft and warm with joy 
 
 Should only pillow such a head. 
 You follow me where'er I roam ; 
 
 You've clung to me through weary years; 
 And when I touch a heart, you come 
 
 And blot the record with ybur tears ! " 
 
 This meek-eyed angel floate 
 
 And clasped the fair hand of her sister. 
 And on her cheek'there was a tear 
 
 That trembled as she stooped and kissed her. 
 ^' O Love ! thou dost remember weU 
 
 When Eve and Adam were too wise. 
 And,, weeping forth a sail farewell, 
 
 We went with them from Paradise. 
 
 " They wonder^ at the storm above, . 
 
 And what the flowers would do without them ; 
 I think they would have died, sweet Love, 
 
 But that your arms were twined about them. 
 I loved the stars and soft blue skies, 
 
 And winds that sung to us at even. 
 And made our lovely Paradise 
 
 Almost as beautiful as heaven. 
 
 " And so I wept and prayed that they 
 
 Might go from niy dark presence free. 
 While I, the meek-eyed one, would stay, 
 
 And weary heaven with prayers for thee. 
 The guardmg angel shook his head 
 
 And said, while pointing up above : 
 'Alas! alas! it is decreed 
 
 You part not with your sister, Love; ' 
 
592' LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 " ' She was the fairest from her birth ; 
 
 But, pale-feced Sorrow, thou art wise-^ 
 While Love would make their heaven on e^th, 
 
 Thou'lt mimi them of lost Paradise.' 
 We cannot part : 'tis heaven's own vow." — 
 
 But Love-'s fair arms were round her thrown. 
 And that one kiss on Sorrow's brow 
 
 Had left a brightness like her own. 
 
 "Dear Sorrow, this fair boy shall be 
 . . A pilgrim at my radiant shdne, . 
 But every time he bends his knee 
 
 Half of the offering shall be thine." , 
 The boy awoke almost in tears. 
 
 So strange and sad the vision seemed,^ 
 Perhaps he knew in after years 
 
 He had not only slept and dreamed. 
 
 The closing touches I conceive to be extremely happy, sug- 
 gestive, striking, and graceful. 
 
 I have watched the developing genius of this author for seve- 
 ral years, and my conclusions are the result of a careful study 
 of, I believe, everything that she hai written. My estimates of 
 her genius and character are based upon the same careful study, 
 with ample opportunities for observation and inquiry. Her 
 genius is not prolific ; she does not write very often, but writes quite 
 fast enough for one So young. She has contributed to a large 
 number of the southwestern newspapers ; and some in the north- 
 west, and among these T/ie Louisville Journal. In the literary 
 weeklies of South Carolina before the war — especially The Ex- 
 aminer and The Courant, both published at the capital of the 
 state — poems from her pen occasionally appeared. 
 
 At the beginning of the war she had a volume' of her poems 
 ready for the press ; and but for the war it would probably have 
 appeared in 1861. 
 
 During the war Miss Reedy became the wife of Mr. Vance of 
 Kentucky, where they at present reside. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 593 
 
 At present Mrs. Vance is engaged upon a novel, the leading 
 thought of which is tliat.even this life may develop a character 
 so perfect and beautiful diat passion, and folly, and sin coil up 
 and die in its presence. The sun of such a life of course is Love. 
 This theme, without being original, is one well suited to the au- 
 thor's peculiar mental nature ; and those who know her best 
 look with most confidence to her marked success upon the pub' 
 lication of the work. 
 
 In person and in manner Mrs. Vance is eminently pleasing-. 
 That something of reserve among new friends which always 
 accompanies sensitive and reflective natures exists in her. She 
 converses well, but never volubly, and is in that faculty of con- 
 versation — the ready, scintillant, and sympathetic rapport of the 
 true Southern woman-r- one of the. most charming of our Southern 
 litterateurs. 
 
 Her chirograph is fine, without being strikingly legible. It is 
 clinging, dainty, esthetical, and withal earnest ; with nothing of 
 ostenta.tion, parade, or dash about it. It indicates strong and 
 lasting p,ttachment to friends, to spots, to memories, and to the 
 past generally., I find in it also extreme delicacy and sensitive- 
 ness to all impressions; a dreamy devotion to beauty, with an 
 almost religious awe for the sublime ; and an intense and earnestly 
 Southern fervour of genius. To express this phrenologically I 
 should say, there are evidences of large Continuity, Adhesiveness, 
 Veneration, Secretiveness, and Ideality, with extreme Sublimity 
 and Memory. 
 
 HENRI VIGNAUD. 
 
 M. ViGNAUD was so distinctly identified with the Confederate 
 party in Paris during three years of the war that he seems to 
 me entitled to a mention here, although he is not at this time 
 resident among us. 
 
 He was born in Louisiana about 1838 ; was a close student; 
 
 50* 
 
594 i-fVlN.G WRITERS OF TffE SOUTff. 
 
 ambitious especially in scientific aaid phikusophical studies ; and 
 by private application takes honourable rank among the self- 
 inade men of the time. 
 
 In 1857 he established, and for some years following con- 
 ducted a. tiS'Nspa.^ei ■—'L' Union de £uf our du — in the town of 
 Thibadeaux, in his native state; In connection with Canonge 
 and Hiriart he established, in i860, Z<7 Renaissance Louisia- 
 naise of New Orleans, as favourably known at the present time. 
 In this periodical M. V^aud published a work partly scientific, 
 but mainly philosophical, entitled JO Anthropologie, which is said 
 to have borne marks of marked ability and boldness, but also 
 of immaturity and haste. The result of this experiment at 
 authorship was to determine its author to go to Paris in order 
 to complete his studies. He went there in 1862, and through 
 the influence of Mr. Slidell, got a situation on the Memorial 
 Diplomatique as member of the editorial corps, becoming also 
 attach^ to the Confederate agent in Paris. His culture has 
 been decided ; and, apart from his scientific Studies, he has 
 taken rank among the best theattical critics of Paris. He has 
 written several memorials to scientific societies ;■ and is to-day 
 secretary of the Sedile Savante, member of the corps editorial 
 of the Memorial Diplomatique, and attache to the Roumanian 
 legation — better known as that of the United Danubian Prov- 
 inces, 
 
 His style is direct, forcible, and clear. In thought he is inde- 
 pendent, honest, and sincere. As a critic, fearless and out- 
 spoken, though careful and considerate. He reflects credit 
 upon his Creole birthplace ; and Louisiana by no means gives 
 up her claim to this one of her many chilcfeen just now resident 
 abroad. 
 
 S. TEACKLE WALLIS. 
 
 This writer is a member of the Baltimore bar, and has 
 acquired some reputation as a writer of occasional lyrics, 
 
IJVING WRITERS OF TH^ SOUTH. 5^5 
 
 mostly war-songs, which have a^jpeared in numerous periodicals. 
 He is said to have written a duodecinio, ei^tled Glimpses of 
 Spain, and a book of travels in. Em-ope, besides his poems, 
 which, make, probably, a small volume. 
 
 His war-poetry is spirited, arid somethnes rhetorical, as in 
 these lines from The Guerilla : — 
 
 They are turning the slaves upon us. 
 And with more tlian the fiend's worst art, 
 
 Have uncovered the fires of thesavage 
 That slept in his untaught hearts 
 
 The ties to our hearts that bound him, 
 J' They have rent with curses awayn, 
 
 And madden him in their madness. 
 To be. almost as brutal as they. 
 
 And again: — 
 
 With h^ter and; torch and Bible,. 
 
 And hymns to the sound of the drum, 
 They preach the gospel of murder, 
 - And pr^ for liist'B kingdom to come. 
 ^' " ' ' ' ' i^'- ' 
 
 Mr. Walli?-'s. Prayer for Peate is a fine poem, full of passion- 
 ate fervour, pathetic truth, and manly, out-spoken defence. It 
 is far superior in true poetic conception to anything else I have 
 seen of h-i«, though "perhaps -less rhythmically fine than The 
 G^«m//a and several others. - ' 
 
 -MISS MARY WALSINGHAM. 
 
 There is scarcely a nom de plume so. widely known in the 
 South as Mary Wabingham.- Ifcis generally thought to be tlie 
 writer's full name, so impersonated in it has her literaiy char- 
 acter beGome. ■ ■*.-*••':•' 
 
 Among tlie women of the South whose names, or noms, have 
 been familiar to the appreciators of in?pr6S|.^ve and passionate 
 
596 LIVING VSmifERS OP THE sdUTH. 
 
 verse, hers stands prominent. She has written both tales and 
 poetty; Hter tales are of the striking and bizarre — not to say 
 grotesque and horrific — style; with just a smack of &e spas- 
 modic. This last adjective applies especially to her Paltnettb 
 Swamp, a war tale of some power j but it also applies to othfers, 
 and to some of her verses. ■; . 
 
 She has not pubhshed a book yet. 
 
 Her poetry is of the intense and femininely-Byronic school — 
 strong and earnest,, always with pomt It may bp^^fmmonplace, 
 but it cannot be drivel. Her personal nature seems to be one 
 of intensities, and her literary character is, as far as it is original, 
 of course, a projection of her personal character. The true 
 artist is always so — is always an honest development in being 
 artistically a projection of the personal self, ^yron was emi- 
 nently so as to his poet-self; and Mary Walsinghapjjhas a tQi^ch 
 of the Byronic in her fervid imagination. 
 
 Shot is a characteristic poem, and I give it entire : — 
 
 Hot from my heart are the teai-drops that are falling, — 
 Falling with this night-dew on my breast of many a wound. 
 
 As I hear the martial drums go past my window calling, 
 And the tread of hundreds marching to the sweet and stirring somid. 
 
 I think of one young soldier on his lone and lowly pillow — 
 
 Oh, braver he than any, and more faithful to be found I ^ 
 
 And his bosom beat for freedom like the throb of ocean's billow, 
 Ere he slept his last long slumber on his couch of many a wound ! 
 
 He did not die for fame — I will tell no foolish story — 
 
 By a false, mistaken shame, wrong the memory of the brave ; 
 
 He left no shining name to the soldier's meed of glory, 
 He might if — but what boots it bnUding fancies on his grave ? 
 
 They said he was condemned 5 that the felon's fate hung o'er him ; 
 
 And well I know who wronged hin), but I breathe, no name aloud. 
 So he bared his stalwart breast, and the leaden volley tore him. 
 
 And he sleeps his last long slumber with his youn^lalood for a shrOud. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 597 
 
 They laid him where he fell when his. brief day was ended,: 
 
 They raised no peering mark ceaseless scorning to bequeath him ; 
 
 But the blinding shot came fast, and the crimson tide d«spepded. 
 And he sta^ered and he fell with his bleeding breast beneath him. 
 
 And fadeless on a stone, as if the spot to show me, 
 
 He poured the brief warm torrent of his young heart of sorrows ; 
 
 And even on that spot where God's mercy failed unto rae, 
 
 The piteous record stands, and fresh brightness seems to borrow 1 
 
 Leaning On my hand, thus I muse how sorrow bound me. 
 In the summer of my days, with a darkness fading never ; 
 
 In the spring-time of my life how the doom of Francis found me. 
 And I bowed my spirit lowly to the martyr's crown forever ! 
 
 They say that I am changed — that my mind and fancies wander — 
 That rhy broken memory yields ; that I fade, and soon shall slum- 
 ber; 
 And tell me is it strange that life's fragile links should sunder, 
 
 With the' heart and spirit bleeding from these death-wounds without 
 number ? 
 
 The following song — Ftown Not — is in a vein different from 
 that of Shot; though both exhibit the same independence of 
 prosodial constraints ; an independence that is to be regretted 
 in every respect. We give it as illustrative of its class : — 
 
 Frown not, dear love, nor deem thyself abused 
 
 Because I try thy love, which I love best. 
 Frown not, nor deem thee heartlessly misused. 
 Because I try thee with my teasing pest ; ■ 
 If, as thou sayest, my mirth is sweet as chimes 
 May I not jingle out of tune sometimes^ 
 
 And if — and V I loved thee not, or less. 
 
 Believe me I should pass unvexing thee ; 
 But inly vexed by feverish fretfulness. 
 
 I fret thee w ith the pangs love whets for me. 
 When most I fret thee, sweet, then ipp^ I love, 
 And colder seem that thou may^st fonder prove. 
 
598 UVmC WRITERS 6lf THE SOUTH. 
 
 Thou lellest me, with envious,' angry glance. 
 Of happier tnen, and mistresses more kind ; 
 Of calm Yolande and placMt fair Constance, 
 Less- fitful these— tiousayest — than summer wind,' • ■ 
 Yet must I deem them, love, more fair than wise 
 Since thou didst 'Scap6 them both to be my prize ! 
 
 Bethink thee, dear, if I had trisd thee less, 
 
 Wouldst thou have sworn so oft to free thy heart ? 
 Would I have bowed my pride to tenderness 
 And both have proved we could not live apart ? 
 Nay — whensoe'er we stinted both for pain, 
 Have we not paid it doubly back again ? 
 
 Frown not, beloved, nor vex thee with my ways — 
 
 Enough that thou art mine and I am thine. 
 Thou wo^dst not have me change what won thy praise. 
 Or lose the charm which makes thee wholly mine ? 
 Ah 1 when I fret, then most I love thee. Sweet; 
 And colder seem that we may fonder meet. ; 
 
 There is something of quaintness which is not exactly natural, 
 but yet useful towards the general effect,, in The Old Tonics in 
 which the untold is the njain poetiQ power : — ,- _. 
 
 Twenty years — ?o says the stone— ' 
 
 Weather-wept, 
 By this church-yard wall alone, 
 
 The girl'Jias slept. ' 
 Mouldermg now, android, and brovm. 
 
 With blotch and blur. 
 Her narrow house is tumbling down 
 
 Over her. 
 
 Over thee the weeds and tares 
 
 Have waved and met. 
 Twenty years — for twenty years — 
 
 Margaret ! 
 
 Tell us what thy dreams have been, 
 
 Sleeping here. 
 Thy white breast bone unto thy chin, 
 
 From year tb year ? 
 
LIVING WRITEJiS Op-THE S0U7TI. 599 
 
 Wert tjiou loved, and wert, thdu. wed, 
 
 . , .Ah! Margaret?. , 
 
 And is life's hollow lustrp shed 
 
 Around thee yet ? 
 Thy whitening 'fingers clasping where 
 - - .1 Thy hearth is not, . . 
 
 Art dreaming of the lover here. 
 
 Thyself forgot? ^ 
 
 Wert ttou bf household love the child. 
 
 And friendship's vow? 
 How so, since weed and bramble wild 
 
 Grow o'er thee now? ' " 
 For mould'ring now, and old and brown, 
 
 Fbrgotten, see, 
 Poor Madge, thy house is tunibUng down 
 
 Over thee ! 
 
 Mary Walsingham was born in Charleston, South Carolina ; 
 but during her infancy her parents removed from that city to 
 New Orleans. Her life, personal, literary, and otherwise, 'has 
 since that period been identified with the Crescent City. At an 
 early age she displayed evidences of literary taste. ' Her educa 
 tionwas received partly at a Catholic convent, and pardy at 
 the' public schools, both in her resident city. She graduated at 
 the Girls' High School under Madame Angela Pogaud. 
 
 In person she is tall, rather slender, -v^ith great symmetry and 
 gracefulness of niovenient. Her style, is Southern, with just a 
 soupson of stateliness. Her forehead is high and smooth ; eyes 
 large, blue, and expressive ; her face in general indicates a some- 
 thing of sadness, neither vague nor dreamy, but definite ; while 
 her manner is fresh and winning. A critic who knows her person- 
 ally and well has written of her head-pose : " Her well-shaped 
 head and finely chiselled brow, crowned with brown hair tinged 
 here and there with a golden kue,. give her an imposing air.'' 
 Her societal manner is fine — pleasing, witty in conversation, 
 genial, ready, and self-possessed. 
 
.6oo LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Her handwriting indicates deliberate, consistent, and tenacious 
 thought ; a disposition to dwell long upOU pn^ subject ; elabo- 
 rateness without careful finish, and little hope ; a womanly 
 adherence to forwi, and too much faith. It shows a lively taste 
 for applause, but an abhorrence of display about it. 
 
 MRS. CATHERINE ANNE WARFIELD. 
 
 Mrs. Warfield, a daughter of Major Nathaniel A. Ware, 
 was bom near Natchez, Mississippi. 
 
 For the purpose of educating his two daughters — Catherine 
 Anne and Eleanor Percy — Major Ware sold out his Southern 
 estates and removed to Philadelphia; and there, diversifying 
 resident teaching with travel, he taught them himself, aided in 
 the lighter branches and accomplishments by masters employed 
 as assistants. 
 
 When very young, Miss Ware became the wife of Elisha War- 
 field, Esquire, of Lexington, Kentucky ; and their home was at 
 that place from the time of their marriage until 1857, when it 
 was changed to a farm in the vicinity of Louisville, in the same 
 state. 
 
 In 1843 appeared a volume of verse under the title of Tht 
 Wife of Leon and other Poems, by Two Sisters of the West, — 
 the two sisters being Mrs. Warfield and her sister, who at that 
 time had become Mrs. Lee. The book was well received by 
 the public, but made no furore. 
 
 In 1846 they, again jointly, published The Indian Chamber, 
 and Other Poems. This volume was better than the other; and 
 indicated, rather than illustrated, genius of creditable vigour and 
 art above the general range of the Westetn Muse. Legend 
 was a favourite feature ; and these were often more spirited and 
 dramatic than purely poetic. Among the lyrics, I Have Seen 
 This Place Before is at the same time illustrative of our 
 author's poetic art and of the character of her meditative fancy. . 
 
Livmo WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 6oi 
 
 It tells us, however, far more of the mind in which it originated 
 than of the theme it presents. We catch glimpses of the inner 
 poet which reveal things more poetical than — I venture to say, 
 than — anything Mrs. Warfield has ever put into the verse- 
 form. I quote the entire poem : — 
 
 I have seen this place before — 
 
 'Tis a strange, mysterious truth; 
 Yet my foot hath never pressed this shore, 
 
 In childhood or in youth; 
 I know these ruins grey, 
 
 I know these cloisters dim — 
 My soul hath been in these walls away. 
 
 When slumber chains each limb. 
 
 In a dream, a midnight dream, 
 
 I have stood iipon this heath. 
 With this blue and winding stream. 
 
 And the lonely vale beneath ; 
 The same dark sky was there. 
 
 With its bleak shade on my brow, 
 The same deep feeling of despair 
 
 That clings about me now. 
 
 Friend, 'tis a fearful spell. 
 
 That binds these ruins grey ; 
 Why came my Spirit here to dwell. 
 
 When my frame was far away? 
 Can t"he wild and soaring soul 
 
 Go out on its eagle sweep. 
 And traverse earth without control. 
 
 While the frame is wrapped in sleep? 
 
 Hath memory caught a gleam 
 
 From a liffi whose term is o'er, 
 And borne it back in that mystic dream — 
 
 Say, have I lived before? 
 Or was prophetic power 
 
 To that midnight vision lent? 
 Is my fate bound up in this ruined tower? 
 
 Speak ! Thou art eloquent 1 
 Si 
 
602 tivmc WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 This theme of mysterious melnories has been Very liberally 
 discussed by minds of many calibres, from Plato ' the Divine 
 down to Tupper the Driveller ; and very diverse have been the 
 conclusions reached. The careful student of the Greek classics 
 will readily recall the spriglitly discussion among Socrates, CebSs, 
 and Simmias, as dramatic characters, in the Phaid^n, where, 
 (when the first of these has claimed that learning — fxa^rjaii 
 — was only a kind of recollection — avajivriGi?,) CebSs ar- 
 gues that, before a thing can be recollected^ it must have been 
 learned; and, if what we come to know by education had been 
 previously learned, that that previous learning could have oc- 
 curred only when our souls were in some state of existence 
 anterior to this bodily life ; — for, says he, referring to their pre- 
 vious learning of things, " This were impossible unless our souls 
 had existed somewhere previous to this bodily life," — roHro Si 
 a dvvarov, ei fxrf r/v nov i^ficov 77 ■ij)VX''J Ttplv s'v rcpderta 
 av^pooTtlvK) Eidei yeviffBai. It is doubtless to this pas- 
 sage that Bulwer alludes, when, in Richelieu, he says : — 
 
 Oh, beautiful, all golden, gentle youth! 
 Making thy palace in the careless front 
 And hopeful eye of man, ere yet the soul 
 Hath lost the memories which (as Plato dreamed) 
 Breathed glory from the earlier star it dwelt in. 
 
 Plato attributes this doctrine to Socrates; and either he or 
 Socrates had received it from Pythagoras; and he, in some 
 form or other, from Pherecyd&s. I'he curious reader is referred 
 to the Tusculanoe -Disputatioms (i. 24,,) of Cicero; as well as to 
 the De Immortalitate (s. 6, tome I., p. 290. D.) of Augustine, 
 and to his De Quantita.te Anim. (s. 34, p. 31Q. ,D.) 
 
 A modern poet referring to these mysterious memories, has 
 asked: — 
 
 Have we in some more favoured world than this 
 Sojourned awhile ere called to earthly scenes? 
 And are these glimpses memories of the bliss 
 Which the long-struggling spirit sometimes gleans? 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF TBE SOUTH. 603 
 
 Tupper, in one of his few superior moments, gave forth in 
 the Proverbial Philosophy flie following snatches : — 
 
 Be ye my judges, imaginative minds, full-fledged to soar into the sun. 
 Whose grosser natural thoughts the chemistry of wisdom hath sublimed. 
 Have ye not confessed to a feeling, a consciousness, strange and vague, 
 That ye have gone this way before, and walk again your daily life. 
 Tracking an old routine, and on sonie foreign strand. 
 Where bodily ye have never stood, findmg yout own footsteps? 
 Hath not at times some recent friend lookpd out an old;familrar, 
 Some newest circumstance or place teemed as with ancient memories : 
 A startling sudden flash lighted up all for an instant, 
 And then it is quenched as in darkness, and leaveth the cold spirit 
 trembling, 
 
 1 Thus far, Tupper. 
 
 I believe that the best philosophical discussion in any sense 
 exhaustive, of this subject is that by the German Herder. But 
 I have no idea of going so deeply into philosophical depths as 
 to present his suggestive theory. 
 
 The theme itself is enrinently poetical; and in this regard 
 Mrs. Warfield is fortunate in her choice of it., I believe it is 
 only the highly-^ or, rather, sensitively — imaginative that have 
 experiences such as the poem deals with. 
 
 But Mrs. Warfield'sgreatest xork— ythe one upon which her 
 position as a litterateur is mainly determined — is in prose. It 
 is her two-volume novel, The Household of Souverie — a story 
 of life in Kentucky, full of striking dramatic effects, mystery, 
 passion, thou^t,and suffering. It, is one of the most striking 
 novels ever written in the South. A critic, speaking of the 
 absence of the commonplace in the book, and the character to 
 be found in it, says of it : "We doubt if any such book was 
 ever written before by an American woman— a work so great in 
 conception and so masteiiy in execution." 
 
 I quote the opiniofi to endorse it. " 
 
 In 1867, appeared Mrs. Warfield' s second novel — The Ro- 
 mance of Beauseincourt. This, like the preceding, is a work of 
 
604 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 originality, startling effects, some spiritualistic tendencies, and 
 s likely to define still more clearly the author's position as a 
 writer of fiction. 
 
 I clip firom a sketch of Mrs. Warfield, by J. Parish Stelle of 
 Kentucky, the following points on \\&x personnel : — 
 
 "The personal appearance of Mrs. Warfield is very good. 
 She rather prides herself on being plain, but she is not plain, 
 beyond what would be considered in the best of taste. Stat- 
 ure about medium, complexion dark, with grey eyes and brown 
 hair. Countenance grave, with a pleasant, though melancKoly 
 expression. Manners rather reserved at first, yet graceful and 
 easy, exhibiting a thorough acquaintance with the usages of 
 society. She is a fine conversationalist. A warm friendliness 
 and quiet, unassuming disposition, render her the idol of her 
 personal friends and cause those who know her best to love 
 her most'' 
 
 E. W. WARREN. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Warren of Macdn, Georgia, is the author of a 
 pro-slavery, moral, and social novel, entitled Nellie Norton. 
 
 ASA ROGERS WATSON. 
 
 Self-made men are often well.made, though generally a little 
 eccentric. Mr. Watson illustrates both these incidents of self- 
 culture. 
 
 He was bom on Monday, the Christmas-day of 1837, in 
 Loudon County, Virginia. On reaching manhood he taught 
 a country school four years. In 1862 he went to Atlanta, 
 Georgia, as book-keeperin the office of The Southern Confede- 
 rate; married there; wrote for the press; and became one of 
 the editors of The Confederate. In 1864 he went to Augusta, to 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 605 
 
 edit The Register ; and next year returned witli it to Atlanta. 
 During that year and until April, 1867, he was engaged in 
 editing The New Era; and then became editor of The Ladie^ 
 Home Gazette^ which position he now holds,' having made 
 Atlanta his home. 
 
 As a prosateur Mr. Watson writes freely, easily, and clearly ; 
 but not what is usually termed finely. There is mora vigour 
 and vitality than artistic finish about his sentences, it is true ; 
 but conviction necessarily follows a lucid and direct expression 
 of a clearly-conceived thought ; and conviction — ^ conception of 
 truth — is the final cause of most prose utterance. This opinion 
 I venture to hold though directly in the teeth of the dog- 
 mas of very astute and very learned men, notwithstanding the 
 adage of Jeremy Taylor, Voltaire, Harel, Talleyrand, Lloyd, Dr. 
 South, Samuel. Butler, Goldsmith, or Young, or whoever else is 
 entitled to the credit of the thought that Young puts in the 
 verse, — 
 
 And men talk only to conceal the mind. 
 
 As a writer of tales, although I belive he rarely indulges in 
 -that recreation, Mn Watson is very fond of surprises, and man- 
 ages his denouements c^eyevly. 
 
 It is as a poet that he has done most ; but ^& saejie stylum 
 vertere of Horace is too often wanting ; and the inevitable result 
 follows — less^is; achieved than the author indicates the ability to 
 achieve. Mr. Watson's longest poem is The Mihstrel of Elsi- 
 more, a legend of prophecy and ill-assorted love that has several 
 telling and thrilling points ; but the poem is far too long for in- 
 sertion here. In thie melodramatic vein is Murder Out, which 
 reminds one, by that quality, of Flash ; and perh&ps, if I were 
 to seek for all objection to the poem, the one I should first find 
 is that there is too much of Flash about it. I quote it entire : — 
 
 I have nailed a horse-shoe over my door. 
 And barred the windows and shutters tight', 
 
 The wind may clash and rage and roar. 
 But the witch is shut fiiom my house to-ni^t. 
 
 SI* 
 
6o6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 She follows me round aU day, all day. 
 And croons a monody in my ear ^-5 . , , 
 
 A shriek, a wail, and a gurgling sound. 
 
 Like the gush of blood, I am doomed to hear. 
 
 Ha ! the old, old hag ! Her wizened face 
 Is grinied with filth and dust and rage, 
 
 'Tis a pitful sight — a crazy crone, . 
 Vigorous with hate that pillars age. 
 
 She heaps her faggots and watches the flame 
 Till it makes her seething cauldron boil. 
 
 Then fetches the draught for me to drink. 
 And swears on her life 'tis witch's oil. 
 
 'Twill make me live forever and aye. 
 Live till earth and sun are gone. 
 
 Kill death itself; but she never says 
 
 'Twill kill the stain of the crime I've done. 
 
 Under her coarse black shawl she bears 
 A blgachen skeleton, gaunt and grim ; 
 
 And vows it was inurdered by a man. 
 And she mutters a fiendish curse on him. 
 
 Whenever she meets me alone, alone. 
 She holds the skeleton up to my sight 
 
 And points its flesbless fitters. at me. 
 And chatters its teeth in a perfect fright. 
 
 Then I knew, at last, there was murder done — 
 
 I knew a girl in her April day. 
 And, foolish child, she died, she died. 
 
 What's that to me ? The people say 
 
 She was wronged. 'Tis true, perhaps. 
 But she and her babe are out of sight ; 
 
 And her bare, white bones the old witch brings 
 And wishes to stand by my bed to-night. 
 
 I looked, in her cauldron th' other day. 
 And saw, as it were, in a mirrow deep. 
 
 Deep —deep as hell — a woman lay 
 Dead, with a babe on her breast asleep . 
 
LIVINQ WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 607 
 
 The woman lay like a weayied on?. 
 Stretched out on a couch for an evening's rest, 
 
 But I was almost ready to swear I saw 
 A dagger marH on her marble breast. 
 
 Her upturned face was the voilet fa?e , 
 
 Of the girl I laiew in the long ago, 
 And the eyes of the corpse were fixed on me. 
 
 And a wail-like voice seemed to mutter, " Woe.' 
 
 She looked strmght through me, heart and soul, 
 
 Red-hot and hissing, and stinging deep, 
 And the cursed hag muttered a gibberish slang 
 
 That rang on my ear till it murdered sleep. 
 
 I know just now she is standing without. 
 Waiting to come with her skeleton white. 
 
 But I've nailed a horse-shoe over my door, , 
 And bai-red my windows and shutters tight. 
 
 One is in some sense puzzled to tell whether Kin is of the 
 Lady-Clara- Vere-de-Vere school or that of Madam-as-you-pass- 
 us-by; but, withput being in the literary sense like either, it 
 has some of the merits of both : — 
 
 I opened the gate that you might pass. 
 
 You threw me a coin for my trouble ; 
 Untouched it rolled off jijtq the grass. 
 
 And would had its value been double. 
 
 You stroke your dog and pat your horse 
 
 And toss me a coin for my duty ; 
 Which Iqve is strongest ? which is worth 
 
 White billets? Eh, my beauty ! 
 
 Neither? Well, I had guessed as much ; 
 
 I Icnew I was not worth your scorning, 
 Not -worth a thought when you'd passed the gate 
 
 I rev'rently opened this morning, 
 
 Is it not strange that luck should be 
 ' Such a very vigilant warden ? 
 That you should be higher, up there in the hall. 
 Than I, down here in the gardp ? 
 
6o8 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Yet so it is ; so you and the world 
 
 Have settled our cdnditions ; 
 I grow the roses that you wear, 
 
 Here ends our several missions. 
 
 Than you the stars are not more high. 
 
 Not farther beyond my reaching ; 
 The utmost world of the universe 
 
 Is less dumb to my beseechinjj. 
 
 But what makes the distance 'twixt you and me? 
 
 I'd swear the same blood is flowing 
 In both our veins ; mine is noble as yours, — 
 
 'Tis true, and worth the showing. 
 
 You shudder to hear me babbling so, — 
 
 I would not offend you, madam, 
 But Still I protest we are kith and kin — 
 
 You're but five years later from — Adam. 
 
 In mentioning parallels in tliis way, I do not intend to impute 
 to Mr. Watson the sin of imitation, for he is in no sense amen- 
 able to that Qharge. He has some of the terse fancy of Aldrich; 
 some of the startling tragic-horror of Flash j and some of the 
 melodious abandon of Owen Meredith j but yet he does not ap- 
 pear in any sense to have borrowed these qualities rfrom these 
 authors. : ■ 
 
 JOHN H. WHEELER. 
 
 Mr. Wheeler is a native of Murfreesboro', North Carolina ; 
 was before the war United States Minister to Nicaragua; and 
 was, a year or two ago, appointed by President Johnson to 
 the Bureau of Statistics in Washington, D. C. 
 
 He has written two works : — 
 
 1. Historical Sketches of North Carolina from 15^4 to 1851 
 with Biographical Sketches of her Distinguished Statesmen 
 furists, Soldiers, etc., which was published about 1854, in 8vo. 
 
 2. History of North Carolina. 
 
Living writers of the south. 609 
 
 MRS. MARY SCRIMZEOUR WHITAKER. 
 
 Mrs. Whitaker, nie Furman, was born in Beaufort District, 
 South Caolina, but early in life removed with her parents to 
 Sumter District. She is a daughter of Rev. Samuel Furman. 
 Her mother, whose maiden name was Scrimzeour, traces back 
 her lineage to Sir Archibald Scrimzeour, whose male descend- 
 ants, under the old regime, were hereditary standard-bearers 
 the Kings of Scotland. The name Scrimzeour, or Scryinegeour, 
 in the ancient Scotch dialect signifies hard-fighter, and was given 
 to the founder of the family on account of his bravery. 
 
 Her elementary education was thorough, and she very early 
 manifested decided literary tastes, making history a special study. 
 Her favourite poets were Pope, Scott, Campbell, and Burns j 
 but Pope was her model poet, and did much to fashion her ear- 
 lier directions of thought and forms of verse. Of the older 
 writers she toot to Ben Jonson, Dryden, Massinger, and Shaks- 
 peare; but Milton's pompous march and supra-mundane machi- 
 nery never found favour in her mind. 
 
 Having pursued her studies at home up to the period of dawn- 
 ing womanhood, she passed across the Atlantic, with her parents 
 and two younger brothers, to Scotland, the land of her ma- 
 ternal ancestors. They took lodgings at Abercrombie Place, 
 one of the handsomest parts of the New Town of Edinburgh, 
 which was occupied by the most refined, fashionable, and lite- 
 rary classes. Some of the entourages that interested and therein 
 had influence in educating our young poet, are mentioned in the 
 following stanzas — stanzas that, written by her after her return 
 to America, serve the double purpose of history and a specimen 
 of her poetic art : — 
 
 Edma t learning's proudest seat I 
 City of palacesj in thee 
 What monuments of royalty 
 May yet the wanderer sadly see I 
 
6lo LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Armorial bearings half defaced. 
 Of yore upon thy dwellings placed. 
 The spacious court, within whose bound 
 The aged dial-jtone is found, 
 Where treads the belted Highlander his round. 
 
 Old Holyrood, all grey with age. 
 Where is the king, the qhief, the page, 
 The princely train, the lordly feast. 
 The jest, the song, the jovial guest? 
 And this was Mary's chamber ! Here 
 Are still her regal couch and chair. 
 The work, 'tis said, of her fair hand 
 A faded relic still doth stand ; 
 She could a kingdom, yet no peace, command. 
 
 On yonder hill, what living forms 
 Stand sculptured ! The fleet, fiery steed, 
 That bore his rider bound with cords 
 ' A bleeding road — o'erworn, his speed 
 Exhausted, falls. His straining eye 
 And nostril spread speak agony. 
 Dying, he vainly strives to rise ; 
 With big swoln veins he struggluig lies. 
 Behold the artist's genius with the poet's vies ! ' 
 
 The unpublished poem from which this extract is taken is 
 entitled The Wanderer. It contains much more in the 'same 
 vein ; but before the date of this written record of our poet's 
 wanderings there occurred many things bearing directly upon 
 her rapidly-developing mind. 
 
 Social life in Edinburgh is pre-eminently literary life. For 
 nearly a century it has been a city of philosophers, scholars, and 
 poets. The days in which the subject of this sketch visited it 
 were those of Professor Wilson — the Christopher North of the 
 Nodes Ambrosianm and of Blackwood' s ; Campbell, the poet 
 of hope J Robert Ainslie, the fosterer of Mrs; Heman's genius ; 
 Professor Moir, the Delta of Blackwood'' s ; 'Burton, the histo- 
 rian ; GilfiUan, the genial usher-in of yOung poets ; the Messrs. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 6ll 
 
 Chambers, with their Edinburgh Journal; and a host of lesser 
 Hghts. Into the charmed circle of these fine geniuses our youth- 
 ful American poet was introduced and received with cordiality. 
 
 It was here that Miss Furman formed the acquaintance, and 
 soon became the wife, of John Miller, Esquire, a distinguished 
 young advocate of the Scottish bar, who, about the date of their 
 marriage — the first year of the reign of Victoria — received a 
 commission as Attorney-General of the British West Indies. 
 Very soon after his arrival at Nassau, New Providence — the 
 place of his official residence — and three months after their 
 marriage, Mr. Miller fell a victim to yellow fever, then raging 
 in the Bahamas. 
 
 Thus bereft in the early dawn of her young wifehood, Mrs. 
 Miller returned to her father's home in Carohna, and lived in 
 widowhood there for twelve years. 
 
 At length, having devoted this protracted period to the tender 
 memories of the past, she determined to emerge from her seclu- 
 sion, though in many respects it was delightful to her, by accepting 
 the hand of Daniel K. Whitaker, Esquire, then — about the year 
 1849^^ editor of The Southern Quarterly Review, a gentleman 
 well known in literary circles at the South. 
 
 Since tlien, besides occasional poems to be mentioned else- 
 ■wl^ere, Mrs. Whitaker has contributed to Gode^s, Graham's 
 Arthur's, and Sartain's, Magazines, published in Philadelphia, 
 writing always under her own name. Her sketches of Southern 
 life, scenery, and manners, published in those periodicals, were 
 so popular that many of her friends wished to see them in a vol- 
 ume, but die war prevented anytliing being done in the matter. 
 During j866 she wrote a number of criticisms upon British and 
 American poets, which appeared, editorially in the Sunday issues 
 of the New Orleans Times, and were well received. 
 
 Her published works are : — 
 
 I. Poems. A collection of miscellaneous lyrics — appeared in 
 1850. ., The reading world was not impressed with the book; 
 and its success was in every respect rjather limited. I gave above 
 
612 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SO (/Til. 
 
 a few specimens of this author's versification ; and the math'iel 
 of this volume is very much in the same style as are the extracts 
 from The Wanderer. 
 
 2. Albert Hastings. A novel — appeared in 1868, having 
 been announced for the year befor. The story is designed to 
 illustrate Southern life, society, and scenery; and opens in fee, 
 pine lands of South Carolina. Thence the hero goes to Nassau, 
 New Providence, where we are in a clime more tropical still. 
 Here he meets with a young Englishman, who dies of yellow 
 fever ; and dying begs Hastings to deliver a letter to his faniily 
 in England. This mission takes us to Europe- And. thus it- is 
 tliat the reader finds himself in so many and different climes. 
 
 It sometimes occurs that the very diversity of opinions excited 
 by an individual is the best proof of the fact that he has some- 
 thing in him. Indeed, it may be taken as a rule that he of 
 whom there exist no very decided opinions both for and against, 
 is not worth knowing. The rule has some pertinency when 
 made to apply to books ; and would be equally valuable in being 
 equally conclusive did writers of book-notices give invaiiably their 
 own opinions. This is not always the case ; hence the rule is of 
 less use to us. Still, as of some value, I propose to give a brace 
 of notices of this novel. The first is from the New Orleans Times, 
 from which we might expect favourable criticism,' if any. T/te 
 Times says : " It is free from the vices of the sentimental school 
 of novelists who appeal to the passions mainly for success, and 
 excite the feelings to the highest pitch by exaggerated descrip- 
 tions of life and manners. It has not a tinge of tlie gross immor- 
 alities of that class of novels.. The interest i-t awakens in the 
 course of events narrated, is human, strong, and well sustained 
 throughout, and not morbid and unnatural ; its style, pure, chaste, 
 elegant, and flowing, is void of affectation. We see in it no 
 traces of the Carlyle and Emerson school, which some of oiu- 
 novelists have copied and by which they hope to conceal tiieir 
 poverty of thought by a certain pomp of learned and abstruse 
 terms and unintelligible forms of speech None of 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 613 
 
 the characters of this work are superfluous. Each has a part to 
 perforrn, and each contributes something important to the grand 
 result that is to be reached. The history of each individual is 
 fully told as far as the reader is interested in knowing it, and we 
 are not left in the dark, as Mrs. MviWbach often leaves us, on so 
 material a point. The whole region of modern fiction will not 
 present us with three more finely di-awn female characters than 
 Emily Lovel, Valerie de Mar, and Geraldiue Ruthbourne, and 
 the witchery with which Roxanna holds us captive is not sur- 
 passed by that of Diana Vernon herself. The author must have 
 been a traveller in the old country as well as the new, for her 
 descriptions of English and Scotch, juid even Italian scenery, are 
 as perfect as those pictures which she gives us of American land- 
 scapes. What delineations she has given us of the whole floral 
 regions of the South ! What reproductions of her unrivalled and 
 Variegated forests! In this department — where excdlence is 
 rare — it is perhaps not 'too much fo say that she is not surpassed, 
 if she is equalled, by any American writer." 
 
 This is approval the most decided, prononci, and specific, — 
 enough in all three directions to gratify a vfery large, if not "the 
 largest,' ambition. It is praise so high, indeed, that it' is at least 
 safe to say that it has not been borne out by a corresponding 
 success in the book market. 
 
 The second notice 'I propose to givfe 'vs.'- from The Round 
 Table of New York, a journal that frequently deals favourably 
 with Southern aitthoi-s and Southern books, more so by far flian 
 the Northern press generally." I give this' notice entire : — 
 
 "Amid the influx of trash which ever since the war has frothed 
 over into print, Albert Hastings rises proudly eminent as the 
 best example yet of how badly a Southerner can vrtite, yet be dis- 
 tinctly a Southerner. For prohxity, pretentiousness, utter free- 
 dom from excellence of any sort, and comprehensive thorough- 
 ness in every branch of balderdash, it stands aloof and alone^ 
 'wrapt in the solitude of its o*n originality.' We recommend 
 it above everything we know to' classes in rhetoric, as a complete 
 
 S3 
 
6i4 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SaU.Tff. 
 
 though somewhat voluminous compend of what not to write and 
 what not to read. After earning, we doubt not, the proud title 
 of being the only person who will ever be able to say he hap read 
 it through, we remember just, one thrilling incident, too charac- 
 teristic to be forgotten. The inevitable villains, plotting to rob 
 the indispensable angel of the story of her usual large fortune, 
 evolve the master-stroke of fabricating a will anterior in date to 
 tlie one under which she holds. We have long since forgotten 
 whether they succeeded ; such genius deserved to sucpee/d^; and 
 we hope Mrs. Scrimzeour-Whitaker duly rewarded it. The book 
 is the most complicated and desperate case oi cacoetkes scribendi 
 we ever saw — a garden of siUineso — a curiosity of morbid lite- 
 rary pathology — a printed vacuum." 
 
 This is worthy in its way of Edgar Poe's keenest and least 
 merciful blade. As to the case in contest, I have no doubt that 
 Ovid's suggestive rule will apply: — In medio tutissimus ibis; 
 and that midway between the Laudatur a^^'i^ on the one extreme 
 and the Culpatur ab illis on the other — "ample room and verge 
 enough, " to be sure — lies the desirable mean. 
 
 I see it stated that Mrs. Whitaker has another novel ready for 
 the press ; but the title and exact scope have not transpired yet. 
 
 MISS SARAH J. C. WHITTLESLEY. 
 
 The town of Willia.mston, in Martin County, North Carolina, 
 on the banks of the Roanoke, is the birth-place of Miss Whit- 
 tlesley. 
 
 She has written a great deal for the periodical press, and has 
 repeatedly carried off prizes for stories adapted to serial publica^ 
 tion d, lafeuilleton. 
 
 Her books are these : — 
 
 1. Heart-drops from Memory's Urn. A volume of miscella- 
 neous poems, published in 1852. 
 
 2. The Stranger's Stratagem, or tfte Double Deceit, and other 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 615 
 
 Stories. This, as its title imports, is composite — made up of a 
 number of stories. It appeared in i860. 
 
 3. Herbert Hamilton, or the Bas Bleu. A short novel, pub- 
 lished in pamphlet form in Baltimore during the year 1867. 
 _ 4. Bertha the Beauty. This story has appeared' in The 'Field 
 and Fireside and now awaits a publisher in bc*ok form. 
 
 5. Spring-Buds and Summer Blossoms. A volume of unpub- 
 lished poems. 
 
 6. 77/1? Unwedded Wifi. Like Bertha the Beauty, this awaits 
 a publisher. 
 
 7. Stellds Stepmother is a novel now in preparation. 
 Besides, these more extended works or larger collections, Miss 
 
 Whittlesley has written quite a number of prize tales j such as 
 The Maid of Myrtle Vale, The Hidden Heart, and Reginald's 
 Revenge / and several that have had successful runs in the tale- 
 pubUshing weeklies — Alice Af ton:, Fifty Thousand and Failure, 
 and The Counsellor Cousin among the number. 
 
 Miss Whittlesley is strongly Southern in her feelings, tastes, 
 and style generally. In a lyric written in Alexandria, where she 
 now resides and has been for some years, she gives the following 
 literal vent to that partiality : — 
 
 And I long to go back to the beautiful ways 
 
 Of my beautiful South ; 
 I'm weary of waiting, and wrathful days, 
 
 And of woe's wide mouth ! 
 Sweet, sweet Carolina ! I'm yearning for thee. 
 
 Dear love of life's mom ; 
 None other can ever be Home to me — 
 
 Home where I was born. 
 
 I give The Ruined Castle, as a fair specimen of Miss Whit- 
 tlesley" s verse, entire : — 
 
 The lights went out in its festal hajls. 
 And the sable of sorrow was hung on its walls, 
 At the midnight of many and many long years — yes, many long years ago ; 
 
6l6 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The lights went out, and the darkness fell. 
 And down the black arches the midnight bell. 
 From the temple of Fate, tolled a last farewell 
 To the guests in its banquet halls, 
 Who fled from its woe-draped walls — 
 At the midnight of many and many long years — ^yes, many long years ago— i 
 > Who never have met, and never will meet 
 
 Again, in that castle, I know ! 
 
 No ! no I 
 Never again, as in years, long years ago ! 
 
 Not one hath since echoed its still corridors. 
 
 And lighted the lamps on the aisle of the years. 
 And the gold candelabra never again, no never again will glow I 
 
 For round the lone Castle the shadows of care. 
 
 And through the dim archway the damp of despair 
 
 Have laden and poisoned the midnight air. 
 
 And none can now ever relume 
 
 The lights in the nitrous gloom ; - . 
 
 So the gold candelabra never again, no, never again will glow 
 
 Through the still galleries and the solenm archways 
 
 That wind in that castle of woe ! 
 No ! no 1 
 
 Never again, as in years, long years ago ! 
 
 And all through the night-tide, and all through the day, 
 
 Where the taper of Thought throws its spectral ray. 
 O'er the pictures of Memory that hang on the walls, as in many long years ago^ 
 
 The hammer of feeling is sounding for aye. 
 
 On the coffin of Hope, through the night and the day. 
 
 And the lone dove of Sorrow is moaning alway. 
 
 Far up in its desolate tower, 
 
 A dirge for the midnight hour — 
 The midnight of many and many long years — yes, many long years ago^ 
 
 When the gold candelabra of Love went out. 
 
 And never again will glow ! 
 No ! no ! 
 
 Never again, in that ruined heart castle of woe I 
 
 Never again, as in years, long years ago 1 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 617 
 
 CALVIN H. WILEY, 
 
 /K 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Wiley is the man to whom the cause of com- 
 mon-school education in his own state is the most deeply in- 
 debted. Nor has this influence been confined to his own state, 
 but the South has felt it ; nor is it confined to common-school 
 education, but extends to education in general, and to literature 
 itself. 
 
 Mr. Wiley was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, on 
 the 3d of February, 1819 ; and graduated at the University of 
 that state, located at Chapel Hill, ih 1846. While at the Uni- 
 versity he studied law, and obtained his license to practice soon 
 after graduation. 
 
 In 1850 he was elected to the State Le^^lature,'and again in 
 1852. At the ensuing session [1852-53] the office of State 
 Superintendent of Common Schools was crfeaited, and he was 
 elected to it bj^ the Legislature. The term was for two 
 years arid he was six times re-elected by a vote almost unani- 
 mous. So successful and satisfactory was his administration of 
 this superintendency that every one of the five governors under 
 whom he served made commendatory mention of it ; and the 
 press of the entire state expressed its approbation in equally 
 favourable terms. So efficient was the system that the schools 
 were kept in regular operation throughout the entire war of four 
 years, a fact which I believe no other Southern state can boast. 
 
 In 1856 he was licensed to preach by the Orange Presbytery, 
 of which he is still a member. . 
 
 Since the war, until the last reconstruction, he was connected 
 with the State Board of Literature, bein]^ a member of it under 
 Governor Worth. " ' • 
 
 He has been connected, as associate editor, with several 
 journals, and has pubhshed quite a number of pamphlets. He 
 was instrumental in establishing a State Educational Associa- 
 tion, which pubhshed z. Journal, of which he was one of the edi- 
 
 S2* 
 
$iS LIVING WAITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 tors. The association and its Journal kept up until the close of 
 the war. During the war Mr. Wiley was the prime mover in 
 estabUshing at Greensboro a publishing-house to supply the state 
 with textTbopks ; also in organizing at Columbia, Soutli Carolina, 
 an Educational Association for the Confederacy. This soon 
 fell through. 
 
 Mr. Wiley's hterary labours in book form are : — 
 
 1. Alamance, vr The Great and Finql Experiment. A histo- 
 rical novel, which was published by the Harpers in 1847. The 
 scene is laid in the author's own country, the tinje, being that of 
 the American Revolution of 1 7 76. It had decided.success, though 
 its popularity was in some degree local. The author enjoyed 
 the great advantage of having perfect knowledge of his locaUties 
 and peoples, with their nationalities and other general character- 
 istics. TliCjOiily invention required was the plot, arid that was 
 in some degree historicaL 
 
 2. Roanoke, or Where is Utopia? This also is a historical 
 novel, like the preceding, and was published about. 18.50 by 
 Peterson of Philadelphia. It had appeared serially in Sartain's 
 Magazine during the year 1848. 
 
 3. The North Carolina Reader. A familiar descriptive history 
 of that state, for the use of schools and families, appeared in 
 185 1. It is intended to make the people of that state familiar 
 with the character and resources of the state, its earlier legends, 
 and later characteristics ; and to foster love of home and to aid 
 in industrial and moral progress. The book has had a large 
 and permanent sale, and is doing — as it has done — a great deal 
 of good in its own humble way. 
 
 4. Scriptural Views of National Trials — was published in 
 Greensboro during the war [1863-64],. in Confederate times 
 and in Confederate style. 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF -7 US SOUTH. 619 
 
 MRS. MARY BUSHNELL WILLIAMS. 
 
 Among the future female poets of the South, I expect Mrs. 
 Williams to occupy a high position. In the elements of hope 
 — the postulates of promise — I know of no individual who 
 stands as fairly as she. She has not published a book yet, but 
 has done more — she has written genuine poems. 
 
 T7ie Seffs of Chattney is the finest of her poems that I have 
 seen'; and had I originally met wi'th it in a volume containing 
 Godiya, I should have thought it by no means out of place. I 
 have not space for the poem entire, and can give only a short 
 extract or two to indicate the literary style and tone of the 
 poem. The legend of the Serfs of Chat^ney, I assume to be 
 generally well-known. The introductory lines of Mrs. Williams's 
 poem are, — 
 
 In the labyrinth of ages, through the clinging dust of Time, 
 
 Ever and anon there sparkle jewels of some life sublime ; 
 
 And their radiance stirs our pulses; and the heart with sudden start 
 
 Turns from Life's thrice-sodden banquet to its being's nobler part ; 
 
 And then quickly we remembCT, like some clarion-voiced rhyme, 
 
 All those Uves whose full completeness shames our sordid, wasted 
 
 prime. 
 Grpping in the arid highway, yet the eye can gather light 
 From the worlds of starry brightness, in their solemn spheric flight ; 
 And the sinking soul grows stronger for some noble tourneys won. 
 And the full heart grows diviner that divinest deeds were done. 
 Then we cry, " Oh, thanks my brother of the noble act at>d name, 
 For my stranded soul leaps upward on the surges of thy fame ; 
 Upward from the slough of custom, from the narrow, sordid strife ; 
 Upward to the high Endeavour, and the -victor's crovmed life." 
 Thank Thee, God ! for men and women whfi with clear prophetic 
 
 eye. 
 Through the blinding mists of Error, trace some revelations high, 
 Thank Thee for the deeper meaning, to their earnest souls made plain ; 
 Meanings yet which never prophet lived, or virought, or sung, in vain ; 
 For some heart the burthen.gathejTS, and the answering echoes roll. 
 Till the high Evangel wakens life in some heroic soul. 
 
620 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 This is as profound as Mrs Browning and as hopeful as 
 Tennyson ; and has some merits equal to either. I pass over 
 the progress of the legend until we reach the audience-chamber 
 of "the lion-heatted Regent, peerless Blanche of sunny France," 
 where the suppliant serf kneels in bphalf of her sufifering 
 class,] — 
 
 Ah ! the sunlight grows no fainter since that autumn day of fate, 
 "When through orid windows glancing o'er thy halls of regal state. 
 It beheld the radiant glances, wavm^ plumes of dame and knight. 
 Lordly priest and haughty baron, and one woful, piteous sight. 
 Where a wild-eyed woman kneeling with uplifted arms of prayer. 
 Shrieked alternate prayer and curses on the silken perfumed air: — 
 
 " Jesu I Qeeen ! Is there no mercy for the serfs of Chat^ney ? 
 Ah, we strove to make a harvest, starved and wrought from day to 
 
 day; 
 But the winds and rains were mighty, mightier than we peasant beasts. 
 Though we bore the pricking harness of our holy lords, the priests. 
 
 "And we showed them hovels empty, slimy walls and rafters bare. 
 Wailing infants famine-stricken, mothers in their dumb despair ; 
 And we prayed our priestly masters for a little time a»id trust. 
 Kneeling at their crimson footstools, with our faces in the dust. 
 
 "God! — Their scornful laugh waxed louder, — 'There are chains in 
 Notre Dame, 
 And a well beneath the chapel that these lying cries can calm.' 
 From their fever-tainted pallets, writhing^ 'neath the cursed thong, 
 Men and women, aye, e'en infants, driven in one helpless throng , 
 
 " To Notre Dame. — Beneath a chapel in a cell scai-ce ten feet square ; 
 There they pine for air from heaven, and — Great God ! — my Adolph 
 
 there ! 
 He, my little fair-haired darling, with his blue eyes glazed by fear, — 
 Ah ! they tore him from my bosom, tore him with a jibe and jeer. 
 
 " With his hot tears on my forehead, and his weak arms' frantic clasp. 
 Christ ! the wretches struck him senseless as they tore him from my 
 
 grasp ! 
 Queen, thou art a happyWother," — and the woman's tone was Wild, 
 . Sunk to one low wail of anguish, — " God protect my little child." 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 621 
 
 The remainder of the poem is in the same vein, but these 
 portions suffice for my purpose. 
 
 Mrs. WiUiams was born at Baton Rouge, the capital of 
 Louisiana, in 1826. Her father, Judge Charles Eushnell, was a 
 native of Boston; and her mother was a descendent of one of 
 the oldest Creole families that settled in Louisiana under the 
 Spanish regime. Miss Bushnell's parents being wealthy and 
 ambitious, bestowed the greatest care upon her education ; and 
 for many years she enjoyed the instruction of that distinguished 
 linguist arid teacher, Professor Alexander Dimitry. She was 
 that professor's favourite pupil, and under his tuition became 
 familiar with the moderi^ languages usually taught, and de- 
 veloped a decided taste for literature. Indeed, there are ief 
 ladies in the South who have so careful; a knowledge of books, 
 who are so accomplished in general, and who possess at the 
 same -time so much of thpse endearing graces which lend to 
 woman her highest charm. Miss Bushnell became Mrs. Josiah 
 P. Williams several years ago, and since that time has lived 
 principally in the Parish of Rapides, in the enjoyment of the 
 most ample means, until the hand of Death deprived her of 
 husband and son, and the hand of War swept away jnuch of the 
 wealth that they enjoyed. ,1 believe since the war she frequently 
 resides some portion of the year in the city of New Orleans. 
 
 Besides poetry she writes sketches in prose, that . bear the 
 impress of die same gifts that mark her verse — the same 
 piquancy, refinement, and esprit- — nothing less than French 
 will convey the idea here — that appear in all she writes and 
 does. 
 
 MRS. AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON. 
 
 Mrs. Wilson, n'ee Augusta j. Evafls, was bom near Colum- 
 bus, Georgia, and is the eldest of eight children. During her 
 infancy her father removed from Georgia to Galveston, Texas ; 
 
622 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 and soon again to San Antonio in the same state. After two 
 years of residence in the West he returned to Georgia, and finally 
 settled in' Alabama, near Mobile. 
 
 'Miss Evans made her dibut as a writer in 1855. Her first 
 book was Inez, a clever fiction of some interest, but of more 
 promise ; so, at least, the public chose to decide at the time. 
 It had, however, far too litde naturalness in it, and far too much 
 pedantry and religious airgnmentation in it. The volume was 
 published in New York by the Harpers. Its reception was 
 very quiet. Since her more recent and brilliant successes, the 
 debutante of that time may hear that apathy referred to without 
 a shadow of annoyance. The book was a failure. The Southern 
 Quarterly Review summed up its opinion of Inez in these words : 
 "There is not a natural character and scarcely a natural phrase 
 in the whole volume." 
 
 Nobody read Inez; hence the universal waking up when 
 Beulah appeared in 1859. That was a complete success. 
 
 Everybody read Beulah. It ran through ten or fifteen edi- 
 tions, possibly more, in a few months. Its fresh, vigorous style 
 stimulated a lively interest. There was living thOuglif in the 
 book. That was novel. The strong vein of psychological 
 reasoning dashed the enthusiasm of many readers of love- 
 stories ; biit still everybody read it Those who did not under- 
 stand it desired to appear to do so ; while those who did under- 
 stand it enjoyed it. 
 
 The many had recentlyread Jane Eyre, and Shirley, and 
 Villette, with admiration. The author of Beulah was styled the 
 Charlotte Bronte of America, 
 
 The compliment had some meaning in it. 
 
 The character of Beulah, the heroine, was assumed to be that 
 of the author. Many fancied Beulah to-be to- a -great degree 
 autobiographical. To distinguish her from Miss Evans of Eng- 
 land — Mary A. Evans, who, under the nom de plume oi George 
 Eliot,, was winning notoriety and favour with her Adam Bede 
 and The Mill on. the Eloss, hut whose nom was hardly known a 
 
LIVING WRITERS OP TttE SOUTff. 623 
 
 week in advance of her name— to distihguishj I repeat, the 
 American author fcom the English, the former was constantly 
 designated — until her marriage, at least — as Beulah EVans. 
 
 The heroine is an intellectual woman, proud, self-i-eliant, ambi- 
 tious, skeptical, and suffering. False pride rtiakes her unhappy, 
 and keeps her so. The prbblem of the soul and its relations to 
 God through Christianity are discussed with a striking boldness. 
 Those; problems of psychology, upon which so much is thought 
 and so little said by every thinking person, are hahdied with 
 very clever skill) and something of pedantry, perhaps. They 
 are left, in the end, just where rationalism must, if ever, leave 
 them — at the gates of prayer. Bmlah left them there y and in 
 the new peace of soul becomes a better and happier woman. 
 The book was free from sentimentality — the sentimentality of 
 popular novels — and this, with the thinking, told in its favour. 
 Beulak was a success, and deserved to be. Almost any reader 
 of contemporarj- literature will be ashamed to admit that he 
 has not read it. 
 
 In 1864 appeared Macaria, her third novel. Written and 
 published during the war, with a reference to the war-feeling, it 
 might have owed some of its imniediate popularity to these cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Macaria has the same vigour, elevation, and stiffering that 
 characterized Beulah; with this differeriee, that its vigour is 
 steadier, its elevation more stern, and its sufTering more aimless. 
 It is again the story of a woman's love, pnde, self-sacrifice, suf- 
 fering, and, I should be pleased to add, of triumph; but we lay 
 down the volume with the painful feeling that the suffering is 
 not paid for. Parallel with the sorrowing life of the heroine, 
 Irene Huntingdon, runs a similar life of manhood's trial and tor- 
 ture in Russell Aubrey. They impress one like brother and 
 sister. There are at least four other characters in the book that 
 wear on through life witii the same fate— love without hope. 
 In general, one feels that the sacrifices are too dear; that life, 
 after all; is hardly worth. It is4he same feeling that I personally 
 
624 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 have experienced on closing several of the novels of Goethe. 
 There is too little hope, and too much heart-corroding care. 
 There is too much iron in the book. It may do to console the 
 failing end of an unsuccessful life ; but the young would better 
 have something brighter. 
 
 The story, however, is admirably told; and I claim the privi- 
 lege of thanking Miss Evans, in the name of her thousands of 
 admirers, for one of the purest, most vigorous, and striking 
 fictions that we have had since No NamCy by WiDde CoUins. 
 The scene-painting is in the highest style of literary art. The 
 delineations are very fine, especially the female characters, which 
 stand out like classic portraits. The style is elevated — a little 
 ambitious to be sure, but vigorous and direct. The tone is 
 purity itself. The pathos is the strong poitit of the book. It is 
 admirable ; superior to anything of the kind that I have seen 
 for some years. The hospital scenes are perfect gems of pathos. 
 The iron will of Aubrey, the haughty, spirit of Irene, the demo- 
 niacal selfishness of her father, the flippancy of, her betrothed 
 cousin, the enthusiasm of the artists, die resignation of Aubrey's 
 blind mother — all these things could not have been painted 
 more powerfully. This power of characterization is wonderful. 
 
 Amid so many excellencies I am reluctant to mention faults ; 
 but, as a part of the truth, I shall give them frankly. 
 
 The book is learned; and when that is too apparent in a 
 novel, men will say — especially if it is written by a woman — 
 that it is pedantic. It is a kind of spite they indulge in. In Ma- 
 caria the allusions are very numerous, always appropriate, and 
 often very striking, but are frequently so recondite that the 
 reader must pause a moment to recall the facts referred to. Iii 
 a large number of them, the original facts are not known to the 
 miUion at all, so that the whole force of the allusion is lost until 
 a cyclopaedia can be referred to. This is a grave fault in a book 
 written for the general reader. Most of the following are of this 
 class. — "the Arabic Alsirat," "the Cridavana meadows," "the 
 Teraphim of the East," "the Laburnum of Constantine,'' "the 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 625 
 
 fabled Norse Ragnarok," "the Mingard Serpent," "mystic San- 
 graal," "the trembling J/yj-te," "the sad-eyed Epoptje," "the 
 sacred d-n6mides,""the lonely ice-girt Maijeleri-see," "far-famed 
 Circassians of Kabarda," "Bensalem," "Malbolge," "dreary 
 caverns of the Agathyrsi," " dusty crypts of Luxor," " the great 
 Lampadrome of Life," " the potent spell of Indian 0-U-M, or 
 mystic Agl'a," "Talmudish Shanihamptiorash." The many do 
 not, and should not be expected to, tnow all about ' all these 
 things; and, whether they should or not, they wOn't do it. 
 
 There are a few personal references open to a similar oSjec-' 
 tion; such as Damastes, Ladon, Uliegh Beigh, Dolce, St. 
 Gilgen, Sage of Sinope, Borodino, Chelonis, Quetelet, Serrurier, 
 Niccolo Niccoli, Leroux, Pingue, Lilienthal, Torquemada, 
 Struve, Jussieu, Argelander, Bessel, Griselda, Diogenes, Teu^ 
 felsdrockh, and — I am ' afraid " of becoming ' tedious — several 
 others. 
 
 Then there are a few words that, in a work on philosophy, 
 would not seem odd, but that do seem so in a novel ; such as, 
 Moirae (for Fates), thanatoid, troglodyte, Egyptic,_ neophyte, 
 chiysblagist, adumbrate, and dubiety. 
 
 "bnce in awhile the intention of the writer seems to be to 
 astonish; as in the following sentence : " Perish the microcosm 
 in the liinitless macrocosm, and sink the feeble earthly segregate 
 in the boundless, rushing, choral aggregation ! " 
 
 I know men who would be so unfeeling as to call that non- 
 sense. 
 
 One perceives something Plutonian in the humour of naming 
 ahorse " Erebus ; " but when something is pronounced to be "as 
 gloomy and spectral as Sheol," one feels that the pHraseology, 
 for a woman's, is a little severe, to say the least of it. 
 
 The hero quotes Latin, without translating it, to his aged 
 mother, and again to a girl in her earlier teens. This was less 
 than one might have reasonably expected of so sensible a youth 
 as Russell. ' But that same aged mother vindicates her intellec- 
 tual dignity by talking of religion- somewhat in the style in which 
 S3 
 
626 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. ' 
 
 a doctor of divinty or a professor of polemics might lecture his 
 senior classes. 
 
 Apart from my objection to the Goethan morale of Macaria, 
 I have but one single objection to it as a work of art. That is 
 the unrelenting vindictiveness of Mr. Huntingdon towards the 
 object of his early love, the gentle and sorrowing Amy. This is 
 so unlike genuine manhood — the manhood, indeed, that else- 
 where appears in his own nature — that I venture the opinion 
 that no m^culine genius would have ever dared to present such 
 a monstrous creation. I do not forget that the Byronic school 
 maintain that 
 
 Love is quelled, when unrequited, 
 By the rMng pulse of scorn. 
 
 But, though under ordinary circumstances this might be true, 
 this scorn cannot live with such withering acrimony through 
 3'ears ; years that bring with them the sorrows of a failing and 
 unfortunate life — the humiUation of becoming a felon's wife, the 
 crushing load of domestic afflictions, exclusion from society, 
 physical suffering, want, and blindness. In tlie name of man- 
 hood, I protest. Such implacable malignity of heart may be 
 Byronic, or Satanic, but it is not human manhood. 
 
 One point more and I have done with fault-finding. The 
 author, whose style is fine, sometimes permits her characters to 
 use such expressions as, " TJiose kind of airs'' (p. 9), "It is only 
 me" (p. 21), "I think I had better go back" (p. 43) —all which 
 is directly in the face of syntax. In two places we have "beside" 
 for "besides;" and once "lay" is used for "lie." Of course, 
 Mrs. Wilson is aware of these things, and inserts them design- 
 edly; but I object to allowing characters to use such ungram- 
 matical phrases, unless they serve to define character, and to 
 stamp grades of society. Then they are of course appropriate, 
 Elsewhere tliey mar. 
 
 In 1866 appeared St. Elmo, Miss Evans's fourth novel. Here 
 the heroine, Edna, is another reproduction of^-the author's auto- 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 627 
 
 character (the word is my own) ; and, like Beulah and Irene, 
 she is hard, dignified, self-sacrificing,: intellectual, well-read, and 
 abounding in quotations. The book is superior to Macaria, in 
 having some hope in it, Macaria has none. Both are learned, 
 and the learning oi Macaria is more far-fetched and unwomanly 
 than that of St. Elmo. The same excellencies in pathos and 
 scene-pairiting are to be" found in this last that made the others 
 so attractive to many who felt drowsy over the learning. 
 
 The opinions of the press, both North and South, have been 
 of a widely diverse nature. No book published by a Southern 
 author has ever elicited such spirited criticism. On the one 
 hand, its admirers laud it to the skies ; and on the other, its 
 detractors ridicule it with merciless severity. Meanwhile the 
 book is a success to both author and publisher. The spirit of 
 Edgar Poe seems to hg;ve impelled some of the Zoilian j>ens 
 that have contributed, by their asperity, to make SK Elmo the 
 book of its day. The decided character of the book renders 
 this style of criticism inevitable ; its genius and its faults being 
 alike tangible, glaring, and provocative of partisanship. The 
 learning found on every page is well worthy of admiration, while 
 the pedantry that well-nigh ovei-shadows even the learning is 
 well calculated to excite the unmeasured spite and ridicule tliat 
 have been so lavishly visited upon it. One evidence of its 
 abihty is to be found in the fact that it was pithily travestied, in 
 St. Twelmo. 
 
 Under the impulse given to Miss Evans's popularity by the 
 publication of a uniform edition of her works, her publishers 
 issued Inez in a handsome duodecimo volume, during 1867. It 
 impresses one just as The Frofessor—laxie Eyre's first dreadful 
 failure — when republished upon the strength of the author's 
 reputation, won by otjier, later, a,nd better books., 
 
 Mrs. Wilson lives about three miles from the city of Mobile. 
 Societally, she is a resident of die city; is the Centre of a large 
 circle of admiring friends; and loves her home- with peculiar 
 attachment. She is strongly partisan in her nature, and 
 
628 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 earnestly devoted to the South. Warmly attached to her 
 native state, that state is proud to claim her. Fondly clinging 
 to her own home, she is the light and pride of it. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1868 that this gifted author became 
 the wife of Mr. L. M. Wilson, President of the Mobile and 
 Montgomery Railroad. 
 
 She has been styled the De Stael of .America ; and, like that 
 gifted savante, she is a brilliant talker, and converses well. Her 
 vein of conversation and language range above the popular tone. 
 Has an interesting face, expressive of thoughtfulness, self-xeUance 
 and repose ; a clear forehead, full of thought ; dark hair ; dark- 
 grey eyes, sometimes beaming with " brave, glad, hopeful light." 
 The general expression of her features, however, is decidedly 
 grave. ■ Her person is medium in height and size. 
 
 Her handwriting is clear, legible, vigorous, precise, uniform, 
 and showy. It has a look both elaborate and emphatic. It 
 reveals even more character than her person does ; indicating 
 tlie cultivated woman of will, system, clearness, and energy of 
 thought; a perseverance — we are tempted to say fersistence — 
 rare in woman ; a steadiness and remarkable uniformity of man- 
 ner ; an absence of all levity ; with some fondness for display 
 and eclat. Her manuscript looks close, though not crowded. 
 Its general appearance conveys the idea of practicalness rather 
 than of sentiment or ornament ; and this we may take to be true 
 as applied to herself The invariable legibility indicates clear- 
 ness of thought ; the elaborateness reveals perseverance and 
 will ; the vigour of stroke is but a form of showing vigour of 
 mind. 
 
 MISS MARY JANE WINDLE. 
 
 I HAVE seen but little of late yeajs from this writer. . Her 
 name was several years ago constancy to be seen in magazines 
 and periodicals of less permsment style. She was very favour- 
 
LIVING WRTTEJi^S OF THE SOUTH. 629 
 
 ably known as a writer of sketches and tales, and occasionally 
 poems. In 1850 a collection of her^sketches was published in 
 a volume, and was favourably received. These sketches were 
 characterized as ' graceful and delicate. . The accomplished 
 author of Women of the ^tf«/^ inclildes i her in the volume 
 pubhshed under that title in i860, and says of her : 
 
 " Miss Windle's most marked characteristics as a writer are 
 affluence of expression, delineative power, and exceeding purity 
 of taste. Though a sufferer fcom ill-health, she is ever faithful 
 to literary pursuits, and mindful as well of all social and domes- 
 tic claims." 
 
 Miss Windle was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednes- 
 day, the i6th of February, 1825. Early in life thrown upon 
 her own resources, she sought literature as a means. 
 
 MRS. EMMA MOFFETT WYNNE. 
 
 The appearance of Crag-Font in 1867 gave Mrs. Wynne a 
 position among the young writers of fiction in the South. Al- 
 though this novel indicates some immaturity and inexperience, 
 it is full of' promise. A fertility^ of fancy that marks most 
 books of young writers, and mars many, is apparent here ; but 
 with Mrs. Wynne's culture, this will doubtless quickly pass 
 away under the pruning of severer art. While in itself Crag- 
 Font does not contribute greatly to her literary reputation, 
 it does unmistakably point to achievements that the South may 
 delight to honour. 
 
 Mrs. Wynne, nee Miss Moffett, is a native of Alabama ; ■ 
 and was bom on the sth of September, 1844. During her in- 
 fancy her father, Major Henry Moffett, moved to Columbus, 
 Georgia, and that city has been the home of his daughter since 
 that time. She was always a good student. At the age of five 
 she was one year a pupil of Mrs. Carohne Lee Hentz, the nov- 
 elist and teacher of the West, with whom she was always a 
 S3* 
 
630 LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 favourite. During her school-life she was noted for her success 
 in study. She graduated when not quite sixteen at the well- 
 known Patapsco Institute near Baltimore, Maryland, receiving 
 a gold medal for excellence in French. She subsequently 
 spent some time at Spingler Institute, Fifth avenue, in New 
 York City, under the tuition of the best masters, devoting her- 
 self principally to the study of music and the languages. 
 During the war she contributed occasionally, principally poems, 
 I believe, under the notn de plume of Lola, to The Field and 
 Fireside, then published in Augusta. In 1864 she became the 
 wife of Major V. W. Wynne, a member of the Tennessee bar. 
 
 In person Mrs. Wynne is described as possessing in an emi- 
 nent degree those qualities of vivacity, sprightliness, and gentle- 
 ness of manner, that, combined with rare mental, moral, and 
 personal charms, go so far to render the Southern lady of 
 culture the power she always is in society. Besides an unusual 
 brilliancy in conversation, she is possessed of the gift of music, 
 both as to talent and culture, that renders her performances, 
 both vocal and instrumental, far, above the excellence usua 
 among amateurs in music. 
 
 It is understood that Mrs. Wyn;ie is engaged upon a historical 
 romance touching the late tragedy of MaximiUan, which will 
 doubtless give evidences of those powers foreshadowed in 
 Crag-Font. The title of the new romance has not transpired 
 yet. 
 
 EDWARD YOUNG. 
 
 Mr. Young is a native of Bristol, England, and was born 
 there on the 25th of November, 1818. His education, as far 
 as received in schools, was finished there. At the age of thir- 
 teen he came as a part of his father's family to America. The 
 family settled in Trenton, New Jersey, where the son learned 
 his trade — that of watchmaker and jeweller. At nineteen he 
 
LIVING ^ ITERS OF THE SOUTH. 63! 
 
 rnoved to Wisconsin, and married there in 1839. After six 
 years' residence in that territory he moved to Hamburg, South 
 Carolina, where he Hved five years. Ohe year spent as a 
 travelling daguerrean artist brought him to Lexington, Georgia, 
 his present place of residence. He has evidently little of what 
 phrenologists call Inhabitiveness. He has a family now too 
 large to admit conveniently the nomadic life of his earlier years. 
 
 His first published efforts at verse appeared after his removal 
 to the Northwest — about his twentieth year. He has contributed 
 to a large number of periodicals ; among them The Saturday 
 Courier and Jhe Saturday Post of Philadelphia, and The 
 Southern Field and Fireside of Augusta, Georgia. It is in tlie 
 columns of the last-named that he has become very widely 
 known to Southern readers. 
 
 In 1859, ^'^ the age of forty, he published a volume en- 
 titled The Ladye Lillian, and Other Poems, a small book of 
 191 duodecimo pages. ^The leading poem — The Ladye Lillian 
 — covers sixty-three pages ; and is a medieval legend of pas- 
 sion, rivalry, and crime — the approaches of good and evil to 
 the human soul, and the natural conseqiiericefs of yielding to 
 the evil — a legendary evolution of the truth that the way of 
 the transgressor is hard. The theology of the poem is rather 
 monkish. The measure adopted is exceedingly difficult. I 
 give an illustrative stanza : — 
 
 Like houseless spectres round and round the tower 
 
 The rain-drenched winds go shrieking, 
 Shaking the trembling casements angrily, 
 Beating against the doors importunately. 
 
 Some open loop-hole seeking, 
 Where they may enter at this bitter hour. 
 • 
 
 This stanza runs throughout the poem, and necessarily falls 
 short at many points. The presentment of the theme is vigor- 
 ous ; but I am constrained to say that it owes very little to the 
 rhythmic art of versification for its effects. 
 
632 UVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 .-# 
 Of the Other JPoems I select Imogen ■ as a favourable speci- 
 men: — 
 
 She was all compact of Beauty, 
 
 Like the sunlight and the flowers ; 
 One of those radiant beings 
 
 That prove this worid of ours 
 Not utterly forsaken 
 
 By the angel host of God, 
 Since now and then its valleys 
 
 By their holy feet are trod. 
 If her hair was black and glossy. 
 
 Or goldeii-htied and bright 5 
 Or if her eyes were azure. 
 
 Or dark and deep as Night, 
 I know not — this truth only 
 
 Do I know or care to know ; 
 Never a lovelier maiden 
 
 Blest this weary world below. 
 In the castle ruled her father. 
 
 And his lands stretched miles away : 
 Mine toiled down in a hamlet 
 
 For his daily bread each day. 
 Too far apart were we, 
 
 Too high wert thou for me, 
 O Lady Imogen I 
 
 When the meadow was all golden 
 
 With the cowslips' May-day bells. 
 And the sweet breath of the primrose 
 
 Cameiip from fragrant dellsj 
 When the blackbird and the throstle 
 
 Whistled chee^Iy jn the mom, 
 And the sky-lark, quivering, upward. 
 
 Rose singing from the com; , 
 Then when the blessed spring-time 
 
 Filled with beauty all the earth, , 
 
 From her father's lordly castle 
 
 Would this maiden wander forth. 
 Where the violets were blooming 
 
 In unfrequeikted dells ; 
 O'er the mead where zephyrs pilfered 
 
 Fragrance from the cowslips' bells, — 
 
LIVING WRITRRS OF THE SOUTH. 633 
 
 Wheresoever Beauty lingered 
 
 There this radiant maiden strayed, 
 And beauty by her presence ~- - 
 
 More beautiful was made. 
 The sunshine loolced more golden 
 
 As it gleamed around her head. 
 And the grass more green and living 
 
 Rose up beneath her tread ; 
 And the flowers more bright and fragrant 
 
 To meet her coming grew ; 
 And mad with love ^d musif: 
 
 The birds about her flew. 
 Oh ! she was the loveliest maiden 
 
 That ever eye did see ; 
 She was sunshine, she was music. 
 
 She was all the world to me. 
 But she never knew the passion 
 
 That set my ^oul aflapie ; 
 That hid me by the hedge-row 
 
 To watch whene'er she came. 
 To see her glorious beauty 
 
 Like a star from heaven go by. 
 Oh ! to see her but one moment 
 
 God knows that I would die. 
 Oh, peerless Imogen ! 
 
 They bore her to the Abbey 
 
 With the pomp of princely woe. 
 With steeds and hearse and snowy pall. 
 
 And while plumes drooping low. 
 And high, proud heads were bending 
 
 In her funeral train, 
 And princely eyes were weeping 
 
 Heavy tears like summer rain. 
 I far-off followed slowly. 
 
 No tears were in mine eye; 
 'Twas not for one so lo*fly 
 
 To weep for one so high : 
 But oh ! since she hath vanished, 
 
 With her have seemed to go 
 All the beauty, all the music 
 
 Of this dreary world below ! 
 
 Dead, dead, and buried, Imogen ! 
 
634 LIVttfG WRITERS OF THE SOUTff. 
 
 The conception of Imogen is thoroughly English — out-and- 
 out un-American— ^ and to American ears wants a vitality and 
 a certain self-assertion that are not always demanded by the 
 English mind. 
 
 Of Mr. Young's later poems I select Under the Violets: — 
 
 Under the violets, blue and sweet,- 
 
 Where low the willow droops and weeps. 
 
 Where children tread with timid feet 
 When twilight o'er the forest creeps. 
 She sleeps — my little darling sleeps. 
 
 Breathe low and soft, oh, wind ! breathe low 
 Where so much loveliness is laid ! 
 
 Pour out thy heart in strains of woe, 
 Oh bird ! that in the willows' shade 
 Sing'st till the stars do pale and fade. 
 
 It may be that to other eyes. 
 As in the happy days of old. 
 
 The sun doth every morning rise 
 
 O'er mountain summits tipped with gold. 
 And set where sapphire seas are rolled ; 
 
 But I am so hedged round with woe. 
 
 This glory I no more can see, 
 Oh 1 weary heart that throbbest so. 
 
 Thou hast but this one wish — to be 
 
 A little dust beneath' the tree. 
 
 I would thou hadst thy wish to-day. 
 And we were lying side by side 
 
 With her who took our life away 
 That heavy day whereon she died. 
 Oh, grave 1 I would thy gates were wide. 
 
 Mr. Young's chirograph is round, close, and firm ; and in- 
 dicates, in addition to the quality of persistent purpose, a 
 passion for historical facts and an abiding faith in the past \ a 
 
LIVING WRITERS OF THE SOUTH. 635 
 
 distrust of the present and qualified reliance upon the future. 
 His head is high and narrow, indicating aspiration, sense of 
 beauty, large human nature, and large charity; a ready faith 
 in historical evidence, reflective habit, and little economy ; as a 
 poet, full ideality, little sensuous melody, and a want of the 
 fervour of physical enthusiasm. His face indicates the para- 
 dox of expectation without hope, endurance, and a prevailing 
 sadness. 
 
 So eine Arbeit eigentlich nie fertig 'wird ; . . . man sie 
 fur fertig erklareu muss, ■wenn man nach Zeit im.d Umstanden 
 das MogKchste daran gethau hat. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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