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A History of 
 
 Southern 
 
 Literature 
 
 BY 
 
 CARL HOLLIDAY, M. A. 
 
 Recently Professor of English, Alabama State Normal 
 
 College ; now of the English Department, 
 
 University of Virginia 
 
 "psr 
 
 NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 
 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 1906 
 
 T 
 
A. a 07001-. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1906 
 BY THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
TO 
 
 Dr. JOHN BELL HENNEMAN 
 
 WHO, AS TEACHER AND EDITOR, IS DOING MUCH 
 FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Beginnings (1607-1676) 15 
 
 I. Unique Origin of American Literature — Conditions 
 in the Seventeenth Century — Character of the First 
 American Writers — Causes of Differences Between 
 Southern and New England Literatures. 11. 
 Surprising Quantity of Early Southern Literature 
 — Descriptions of America and Their Effect — 
 Conditions in the Colonies. IIL John Smith — 
 His Life — His Works — Differences Between Be- 
 ginnings of Northern and Southern Literatures. 
 IV. George Percy — His Discourses of the Planta- 
 tions of the Southern Colony. V. William 
 Strachey — A True Reportory of the Wrack and 
 Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates — Historie of 
 Travaile Into Virginia. VI. Alexander Whitaker — 
 His Goodi News from Virginia. VII. John Pory — 
 His Geographical Historie of Africa — His Weak- 
 ness — His Work in America — His Writings. VIII. 
 George Sandys — His Early Work — His Transla- 
 tion of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Its Literary Ex- 
 cellence. IX. Henry Norwood — A Voyage to 
 Virginia. X. Father Andrew White — ^John Ham- 
 mond — His American Spirit — His Leah and Rachel. 
 XL George Alsop's A Character of the Province 
 of Maryland. XII. Conditions at the Close of 
 the First Period. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 National Consciousness (1676-1740) 41 
 
 I. Bacon's Rebellion and Its Influence — Rise of 
 Patriotism — Effects on Literature — Nathaniel 
 Bacon, the First National Hero. II. The Bur- 
 well Papers— Thtir Description of the Rebellion — 
 Elegy on Bacon. III. Reason for Literary Bar- 
 renness — Differences Between Northern and 
 
Contents 
 
 Southern Social Systems — Lack of Education in 
 the South. IV. Robert Beverley— His flistory 
 and Present State of Virginia — Laziness in the 
 Colonies. V. The Sot-Weed Factor— Ebenezer 
 Cook — His Description of Southern Settlements — 
 His Sot-Weed Redivivus. VI. John Lawson — 
 His History of Carolina — His Knowledge of the 
 Subject — His Description of Charleston. VII. 
 James Blair — His Character— His Efforts for 
 Education — Founding of William and Mary Col- 
 lege — The Present State of Virginia and the 
 College — Discourses on the Sermon on the Mount. 
 VIII. Hugh Jones — His Present State of Vir- 
 ginia — English Grammar — Accidence to Mathe- 
 matics — Accidence to Christianity — His Descrip- 
 tions of Conditions in Virginia. IX. William 
 Byrd — His Brilliant Attainments — His Services to 
 Virginia — His Writings — His Humorous Pictures 
 of North Carolina — Indian Legend of a Christ. 
 X. William Stith — His Knowledge of Virginia — 
 History of the First Discovery and Settlement of 
 Virginia — His Description of John Smith. XL 
 Francis Yonge's A Narrative of the Proceedings — 
 Sir John Randolph's Breviate Book — Alexander 
 Garden — His Stern Morality — His Regeneration 
 and Testimony of the Spirit — Close of the Second 
 Period. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 The Revolutionary Period (1740-1810) 71 
 
 I. Century of Political Education — Popular Free 
 Education — Conditions in 1740 — Importance of 
 William and Mary College — Culture in the Early 
 South — Units of Society — Character of Literature 
 of this Period. II. A True Narrative of Georgia — 
 Its Portrayal of Conditions. III. A Tournal of 
 the Proceedings in Georgia — Lack of High Artistic 
 Quality. IV. William Henry Drayton— First 
 Public Expression of States'-Rights — Drayton's 
 Letter of a Freeman. V. Patrick Henry — His 
 Development — His Eloquence — His Services for 
 America. VI. Thomas Jefferson — His Early 
 Training— His Deeds — His Epitaph — His Writ- 
 ings — Declaration of Independence — Its Strength 
 and Weakness. VII. Literary Importance of 
 1775 — Richard Henry Lee — Henry Laurens — 
 Joseph Galloway — ^John Dickinson — David Ram- 
 say—James Madison— George Washington— His 
 
Contents 7 
 
 Early Training — His Marriage — His Public Serv- 
 ice — His Writings — His Practical Patriotism — 
 Farewell Address. VUI. Henry Laurens — His 
 Revolutionary Services — His Narrative of the 
 Confinement in the Tower of London. IX. The 
 Federalist — ^James Madison — His Political Ca- 
 reer — His Essays — His Appeal to the Intellect. 
 X. Historians and Biographers — David Ramsay — 
 His Services for America — His Knowledge of 
 American Events — His Histories and Biogra- 
 phies — An Indian Treaty — Calamitous Nature of 
 Revolutionary War. XL John Marshall — His 
 Life of Washington — Importance of Judicial Sys- 
 tem. XII. Mason Weems — His Versatility — His 
 Books — Washington and the Hatchet. XIII. 
 William Wirt — His Legal Career — Life of Patrick 
 Henry — Letters of a British Spy — Blind Preacher's 
 Sermon. XIV. John Zoachin Dulany — Arthur 
 Lee — Henry Lee. XV. Poetry of the Revolution- 
 ary Period — Independence — American Soldiers' 
 Hymn — Battle of King's Mountain — Virginia 
 Hearts of Oak — Hewlings' The American Hearts 
 of Oafe— Rednap Howell— James McClurg. XVI. 
 Charles Henry Wharton — His Poetical Epistle to 
 George Washington. XVII. Hugh Henry Brack- 
 enridge — Early Struggles — His Battle of Bunker 
 Hill — His Sermons — His Death of General Mont- 
 gomery — Brackenridge's Later Career — Modern 
 Chivalry. XVIII. St. George Tucker — His 
 Poetry — Resignation, or Days of My Youth — 
 Close of Revolutionary Period. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Period OF Expansion (1810-1850) 117 
 
 Materialism and Literature — Industrial Awakening in 
 America — Effects of Cotton-gin — Settlement of the 
 Central South — Political, Social, and Literary 
 Results — Education in the South — Statecraft — 
 Southern Magazines — Literary Conditions in the 
 North — in the South. 
 
 Orators, Essayists, and Historians. I. Southern 
 Eloquence — William Pinkney — Robert Walsh — 
 Sam Houston — William Campbell Preston — ^John 
 Randolph — His Eccentric Character — His Bold- 
 ness — His Sarcasm and Bitterness — Letters to a 
 Young Relative. II. Henry Qay — His Political 
 Career — His Oratory — Speech on the Greek Revo- 
 lution — Defense of the American System — His 
 
Contents 
 
 Love of Peace. III. John C. Calhoun— Early 
 Training— Radical Changes in His Political 
 Views — Disquisition on Government — Discourse on 
 the Constitution and Government of the United 
 States— C3.\honn's. Logical Theories. IV. Thomas 
 Hart Benton— His Career— His Power as a 
 Speaker— T^ir/ii Years^ View of the Workings of 
 Our Government — Abridgment of the Debates of 
 Congress — An Examination of the Dred Scott 
 Coje— Description of a "High-class" Duel. V. 
 Webster-Hayne Debate — Robert Young Hayne— 
 His Services for the South — His Eloquence — The 
 Rights of the State. VI. Southern Culture- 
 James Wilkerson's Memoirs of My Own Times — 
 Robert Goodloe Harper — ^John Drayton's View of 
 South Carolina and Memoirs of the Revolution in 
 South Carolina — Archibald Alexander — Ninian 
 Pinkney — Hugh Swinton Legare. VII. Wash- 
 ington AUston — His Training as an Artist — His 
 Sylphs of the Seasons — Monaldi — His Art Essays. 
 
 VIII. John James Audubon — His Early Train- 
 ing — His Failure in Business — His Love of 
 Nature — The Birds of America. IX. Francis 
 Lister Hawks — His Educational Work — His Ad- 
 mirable History of North Carolina — The Croatan 
 Mystery. X. Charles Gayarre — His Early Activi- 
 ties — Historical Essay on Louisiana — History of 
 Louisiana — His Defense of the South. 
 
 Fiction. No Dearth of Story-tellers in the South — 
 Early English Novelists Read — Southern Material 
 for Fiction and Humor. I. Alexander Garden — 
 Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War. II. Davy 
 Crockett — His Strange Life — His Autobiography 
 and Other Writings — His Grammar and Style. 
 III. "Poor Whites" — Augustus Baldwin Long- 
 street's Descriptions of Them.— Georgia Scenes — 
 Letters from Georgia to Massachusetts — William 
 Mitten. IV. William Tappan Thompson — Major 
 Jones's Series. V. Johnson Hooper — Captain 
 Simon Suggs — Widow Rugby's Husband and 
 Other Tales of Alabama — Portrayals of Ignorance 
 and Superstition of "Poor Whites." VI. Char- 
 acter of Ante-bellum Fiction — George Tucker — 
 His Serious Prose — His Novels. VII. William 
 Carruthers — Cavaliers of Virginia — Knights of the 
 Horseshoe. VIII. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker — 
 The Partisan Leader — Its Prophecy and Effects. 
 
 IX. John P. Kennedy — His Active Public Life — 
 Life of William Wirt — Swallow Barn — Horse- 
 Shoe Robinson — Rob of the Bowl — Pictures of 
 Virginia Life. X. William Gilmore Stmms — His 
 
Contents 
 
 Early Struggles — ^His Literary Productiveness — 
 His Interest in Southern Writers — His Poetry — 
 His Fiction — His Southern Flavor. 
 
 Poetry. The Amateur Spirit — Technique of Southern 
 Poetry — Literary Disadvantages of the South. I. 
 Plantation Melodies — The Negro an Originator — 
 Specimens of Negro Folk Songs. II. John 
 Shaw — His Song. III. William Munford — His 
 Translation of the Iliad. IV. Francis Scott 
 Key — Men Famous Through One Song — The Star- 
 Spangled Banner. V. William Maxwell — To 
 Anne — To a Fair Lady. VI. Richard Dabney — 
 His Unfortunate Life — His Poems Original and 
 Translated. VII. Richard Henry Wilde — His 
 Early Life — His Political Career — Studies in 
 Italy — Life of Dante — His Poetry — My Life Is 
 Like a Summer Rose. VIII. Mirabeau Buona- 
 parte Lamar — His Verse Memorials. IX. Edward 
 Coate Pinkney — His Varied Activities — His Melo- 
 dious Poetry. X. George D. Prentice — His Edi- 
 torial Work — His Dignified Poetry. XL Philip 
 Pendleton Cooke — His Love of Hunting — His 
 Froissart Ballads and Other Poems — His Fiction — 
 Florence Vane. XII. Severn Teackle Wallis — 
 His Interest in Spain — His Poetry. XIII. George 
 Dewey — Blind Louise. XIV. Amelia Welby — 
 Poems by Amelia — Their Melody. XV. James 
 Mathewes Legare — Orta-Undis and Other Poems. 
 XVI. Albert Pike— His Wandering Life— His 
 Prose Sketches and Poems — Hymns to the Gods — 
 His Active Public Life— His Poetry. XVII. 
 Edgar Allan Poe — His Ancestry — His Childhood — 
 His University Career — His Life in the Army and 
 at West Point — Early Poetic Efforts — Editor- 
 ial Work — His Fiction — The Raven — Lack of 
 Policy — Death of His Wife — His Death — Poe as 
 a Critic — as a Fiction Writer — as a Poet — Beauty 
 of His Poetry. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Civil War Period (1850-1875) 241 
 
 Social Upheavals of the Period — Effects of the Civil 
 War — Lack of High Statesmanship. I. Jefferson 
 Davis — Military Career — Political Career — His 
 Efforts for the Confederacy — His View of the 
 State's Powers — Rise and Fall of the Confederacy. 
 II. Robert Toombs — His Passionate Nature — His 
 Speeches— Confederate Obligations. III. Alex- 
 
10 Contents 
 
 ander H. Stephens— Physical Weakness— Mental 
 Strength — His Career— Sources of His Power — 
 Stephens' Writings. IV. Zebulon Baird Vance— 
 His Wit and Eloquence— His War Activities- 
 Power in Politics— His Oratory. V. Effects of 
 the Bitter Discussions— Octavia Le Vert— Her 
 Happy Life— Her Brilliancy — Her Acquaintance 
 with Great Men — Lamartine's Advice to Her — 
 Souvenirs of Travel — Souvenirs of the War — 
 Souvenirs of Distinguished People. VI. Joseph 
 Baldwin — Flush Times in Alabama and Missis- 
 sippi — Virginia Patriotism. VII. Thomas R. R. 
 Cobb— His Legal I^hlVAy— Digest of the Laws of 
 Georgia — Letters from an Honest Slaveholder — 
 Law of Slavery. VIII. George William Bagby — 
 His "Mozis Addums" Writings — ^Jud Brownin's 
 Account of Rubinstein's Playing. 
 
 The Novelists. Slavery's Effect on Thought. I. 
 Francis Goulding — His Invention of the Sewing 
 Machine — The Young Marooners. II. Emma 
 Southworth — Her Early Misfortunes — Her Novels 
 —Their Sensational Nature. III. Richard Mal- 
 colm Johnston — History of English Literature — 
 His Fiction — His Use of Eccentricities, Customs, 
 and Dialect — His Humor. IV. Sarah Anne 
 Dorsey — Her Novels — Life of Governor Allen of 
 Louisiana. V. Marion Harland — Her Literary 
 Training — Early Lite'rary Efforts — Her Fiction — 
 The Story of Mary Washington. VI. John Esten 
 Cooke — Leather Stockings and Silk — Virginia 
 Comedians — His Characters — His Faults. VII. 
 St. George Tucker — Hansford — Caroline Lee 
 Hentz's Planter's Northern Bride — ^Augusta Evans 
 Wilson — Her Early Literary Work — Inez — Beulah 
 — Mocaria — St. Elmo — Its Wide Popularity — 
 Vashti — The Speckled Bird — Display of Learning 
 — Her Virility — Her Characters. 
 
 Poetry. I. War and Poetry — Civil War Poetry in- 
 the North — in the South — Specimens of Each. 
 II. Lyric Poetry in the South — Alexander Beau- 
 fort Meek — Red Eagle — Songs and Poems of the 
 South. HI. Theodore O'Hara — The Bivouac of 
 the Dead — Its Origin — Its Fame. IV. Margaret 
 Preston — Her Intellectual Attainments — Silver- 
 wood — Beechenbrook; a Rhyme of the War — 
 Characteristics of Her Poetry. V. Francis 
 Orrery Ticknor — Virginians of the Valley — Little 
 Giffen. VI. The Occasional Poet — John Reuben 
 Thompson — The Life and Character of Edgar 
 Allan Poe — Thompson's Poetry — Music in Camp. 
 VII. James Barron Hope — Arms and the Man — 
 
Contents 11 
 
 Memorial Ode — Charge at Balaklava — Qualities of 
 His Poetry. VIII. Point of View of this Book- 
 Literary Tastes of Ante-bellum Days — ^John 
 Williamson Palmer — Stonewall Jackson's Way. 
 
 IX. Henry Flash — His Weakness and Strength. 
 
 X. Father Ryan — His Love of the South — His 
 Poetry — Its Sadness — Its Vigor — Its Music. XL 
 Henry Timrod — His Education — His Parentage — 
 His Early Work — His War Service — His Poverty 
 and Sufferings — His Death — Nature in His Poetry 
 — Depth and Beauty of His Thought — His Tech- 
 nique — His Imagination — Energy of His Expres- 
 sion. XII. Paul Hamilton Hayne — His Early 
 Opportunities — His Ambition — His Early Happi- 
 ness — His Loss of Property and Health — His 
 Home at Copse Hill, Georgia — His Wife — His 
 Friendships — His Physical Weakness — His Death 
 — Variety of His Sentiments — Hia War Poems — 
 His Dreaminess and Wistfulncss — His Optimism — 
 Lyric of Action — His Nature Poetry — His Tech- 
 nical Excellence. XIII. Sidney Lanier— His Love 
 of Music — His Early Life — His College Career — 
 His War Career — His Struggle with Disease — His 
 Life at Baltimore — His Work at Johns Hopkins — 
 His Prose Works — His Poetry — His Death — 
 Science of English Verse — Music in His Poetry — 
 His Chant-like Effects — His Passion for Nature — 
 His Vivid Descriptions — Moral Purpose in His 
 Poetry. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The New South (1875-1905) 357 
 
 Vast Industrial, Economic, and Social Changes in the 
 South — Southern Literary Revival — Southern 
 Magazine Writers — No Great Publishing Center 
 in the South. I. Decline of Old Ideals — Southern 
 Political Leaders — Henry Watterson — His Editor- 
 ial Work — His Public Services. II. Henry 
 Grady — Early Struggles — His Journalistic Career — 
 His Oratory. 
 
 Poetry. I. Numerous Minor Poets in the South — 
 Character of Their Work — John Henry Boner — 
 Foe's Cottage at FordSham. II. Irwin Russell — 
 His Unfortunate Life — Pioneer in the Use of 
 Negro Dialect — Christmas Night in the Quar- 
 ters — His Literary Influence. III. Samuel Min- 
 turn Peck — His Lig:htness, Humor, and Melody. 
 IV. Frank L. Stanfon — His Journalistic Work — 
 Strength and Weakness of His Work. V. Madi- 
 
12 Contents 
 
 son Cawein— Quantity of His Poetry— His Love of 
 Nature— His Depth— Robert Burns Wilson— Wil- 
 liam Hayne— Lizette Woodworth Reese— Danske 
 Dandridge— John B. Tabb— Carlyle McKinley— 
 George Herbert Sass— Yates Snowden- Henry J. 
 Stockard — Benjamin Sledd. 
 
 Fiction. Great Number of Fiction Writers — Well 
 Defined Manner of Thinking in the South— Fresh- 
 ness of Southern Fiction. I. Frank Hopkinson 
 Smith — His Versatility — His Humor — Colonel 
 Carter of Cartersville. II. George W. Cable — 
 Southern Feeling Toward Him — His Ambition 
 and Struggles — The Negro Question — Artistic 
 Ability — Moral Purpose in His Work — His Char- 
 acters. III. Joel Chandler Harris — Permanence 
 of Folk-lore — His Journalistic Career — His Negro 
 Sketches— His Fables. IV. Mary Noailles Mur- 
 free — Cause of Her Literary Career — Her Moun- 
 tain Stories — Her Hidden Identity — Her Vigor 
 and Wholesomeness — Strength of Her Plots — 
 Her Characters — Her Descriptive Powers. V. 
 James Lane Allen — Charm of His Fiction — His 
 Plots — His Pictures of Common Life — His Mas- 
 tery of the Fiction Form — His Pathos — His Style. 
 VI. Thomas Nelson Page — His Negro Songs and 
 Stories — Marse Chan — His Artistic Ability — His 
 Depth of Sentiment. VII. Albion Tourgee — 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett — ^John A. Macon — 
 Harry Stillwell Edwards — Grace King — Mary 
 Johnston — Conclusion. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Index 
 
 395 
 399 
 
PREFACE 
 
 When, in the development of a nation, the extent 
 of territory inhabited by that people becomes so 
 great as to preclude a mutual understanding of the 
 diverse customs and feelings of the various sections, 
 it is but natural and indeed necessary that such a 
 commonwealth should have more than one distinct 
 type of literature, and that these types should be in 
 many traits exceedingly different. Such, for 
 instance, is fast becoming the condition of letters in 
 the British Empire. The writings of Canada are 
 by no means the same as those of England ; neither 
 are those of India or of Australia. The difference 
 between French Literature and Provengal Literature 
 is even more marked. In the study of American 
 Letters it has sometimes been doubted whether that 
 district commonly known as "the South" has pro- 
 duced a literature so different in its fundamental 
 conception and growth as to deserve separate atten- 
 tion. They alone doubt whose knowledge of the 
 subject is limited. 
 
 The chief blame for the lamentable fact that until 
 very recently American scholars have failed to 
 recognize a literature of the South must be placed 
 not upon the North, which has been busy extolling 
 its own representative writings, but upon the South 
 itself, which, because of its genial carelessness and 
 procrastination before the Civil War and its poverty 
 and struggles since that conflict, has suffered the 
 critical spirit to lie dormant and its story-tellers 
 and poets to pass almost unnoticed. In the Southern 
 States of this republic men have lived, written, and 
 
14 Preface 
 
 gone into oblivion who in New England would have 
 been encouraged and developed by just yet friendly 
 criticism into geniuses of high rank. Hence, today 
 many unprejudiced and conscientious students of 
 American Letters are ignorant of that body of litera- 
 ture — ^much of it worthy indeed of permanency — 
 which has arisen in the South. 
 
 It is the purpose of this volume to make a study 
 of the various literary movements and their results 
 and to show that the writings of this section are 
 not mere disconnected efforts of isolated thinkers, 
 but, rather, the natural, logical, and continuous pro- 
 ductions of a people differing so materially in views 
 and sentiments from their neighbors on the North 
 that even civil war was necessary tO' prevent their 
 becoming separate nations. Fortunately, each year 
 brings about a clearer understanding between the 
 two vast divisions. But that which is past is history 
 and cannot be undone. Southern Literature has 
 been, and, to a great degree, still is, the result of an 
 attitude differing exceedingly from the attitudes of 
 the Northeast and of the West. 
 
 Many Southern scholars are now giving the sub- 
 ject special attention, and there is throughout the 
 entire South a desire to know something of the sec- 
 tion's literature. But limited indeed is the informa- 
 tion possessed by the best of these investigators. 
 
 In only one period may be found plentiful results 
 of study — the period named in this book "The 
 Beginnings." This division of the subject Professor 
 Moses Coit Tyler has treated with such scholarly 
 accuracy and fullness that the author could do little 
 more than repeat his assertions. But this period 
 past, there is indeed poverty of data. It is the 
 author's hope that a more zealous spirit of research 
 may be aroused by this pioneer volume, and that 
 through this means not a few works of real value may 
 again be brought to light. 
 
A HISTORY OF SOUTHERN 
 LITERATURE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS 
 
 (1607- 1 676) 
 
 I 
 
 The literature of almost every nation has had its 
 birth in the national traditions, folk-lore, and ancient 
 epics of the barbarous days. Greece created its Iliad 
 and its Odyssey from the history of its own dim 
 past; Rome founded its ^neid on the traditions of 
 old; France took its Song of Roland from the 
 legends of antiquity; Germany brought forth its 
 Nihelungen Lied from days of pagan worship ; and 
 England built the huge fabric of Beowulf on tales 
 more ancient than Christianity. All the great litera- 
 tures of the world have passed through a period of 
 unconscious development, a time when peasant and 
 prince and warrior and minstrel were all unwittingly 
 adding, by their deeds, songs, and stories, rude but 
 rich material to the store of future literary wealth. 
 Such has been the fortunate beginning of most 
 national bodies of letters. 
 
 But American Literature had a conscious birth. 
 Its written form was not the result of centuries of 
 slow evolution : it sprang into existence. Its origin 
 
16 The Beginnings 
 
 does not lie in the crude utterances of a virile but 
 half-savage race; but, rather, in its very beginnings, 
 it was the product of a cultured, enlightened people. 
 In character it was not a pure growth of the native 
 soil, and it had not and never has had, as a whole, 
 the national originality, the unmistakable native note, 
 such as is found in the writings of France or Ger- 
 many or England. Pure in its grammatical and 
 rhetorical form, pleasing in style, for the most part, 
 without shocks to the sesthetic sense, it lacked most 
 of the faults of a nation's first literary attempts. 
 And yet it had one vast fault : it was imitative. It 
 was but an echo of the great English voice across 
 the waters. 
 
 The conditions, however, could not be otherwise. 
 Note the age and the movement. It was a wonderful 
 period in the history of the world. France was 
 entering upon a period of brilliant culture ; Germany 
 was casting aside her contented slothfulness ; Russia 
 was arising from savagery ; and, above all, England, 
 in at least two directions, War and Literature, was 
 becoming mistress of the modern world. Shakes- 
 peare walked the streets of London, and men of 
 marvelous genius talked with him daily. Ships 
 came in with strange stories of discoveries in far- 
 away seas. Each day the people realized that their 
 sphere of action was growing. Science, too, had 
 been bom again, and experiments, based on facts 
 and not on fantastic theories, were producing aston- 
 ishing results. Lord Bacon lived and demonstrated 
 a new and practical philosophy. The English had 
 become the greatest nation of the modern world, and 
 proudly they realized it. A new energy, an invig- 
 orating self-consciousness, possessed the British, and 
 into every walk of life they entered with an all-con- 
 quering confidence. 
 
The Beginnings 17 
 
 In such a day American Literature began. The 
 little band of adventurers who met in London during 
 Christmas week, 1606, knew that the eyes of all 
 England were upon them. They were undertaking 
 an unprecedented task. Even the poet-laureate sang 
 of them. The poet Drayton, in his poem, declared 
 that they were going forth to found a new nation 
 and a new literature, and his prophecy was indeed 
 true. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the first 
 writings of the new world were but echoes of the 
 literature of beloved old England? For these new 
 comers were only Englishmen under new conditions. 
 They were men suddenly transported from the 
 wonderful creative activity of England to the abso- 
 lutely unliterary wilderness of America. Naturally, 
 necessarily, their words were filled with memories 
 of the mother country. And, again, "royal influence 
 of favor and of disfavor swayed largely those new and 
 feeble currents of English life and letters which were 
 astir beyond the Atlantic." 
 
 But, in spite of the lack of individuality in the 
 beginnings of American Literature, there is one 
 charming trait in it all, and that is the element of 
 wonder. Every line of those early writings seems 
 filled with astonishment. Can the world be so big ? 
 Can there be such a vast land unknown before ? Can 
 there be such beautiful scenes, such magnificent 
 rivers, mountains, and forests outside of England? 
 These were some of the questions that seemed con- 
 stantly before the first writers. And the cry on every 
 side was. Tell us more of this strange land. There- 
 fore the first literature of America, and, of the South, 
 was a literature of description and of information. 
 
 And another fact in this connection must be noted. 
 The pioneers of American Letters were not primarily 
 men of letters but men of action, — adventurers 
 hungering for new scenes and blood-rousing deeds. 
 
18 The Beginnings 
 
 We must not, therefore, look for the style that marks 
 the classic. The plain and ready words of men, 
 daring and instantaneous in action — these are what 
 we shall find. The strange story which they told 
 contained charm enough, and the sense of wonder 
 which filled each expression was, and is to this day, 
 ample recompense for any rudeness of word. As has 
 been indicated, it is a descriptive and historical litera- 
 ture, with but little poetry, no drama, no fiction, — 
 at least no intentional fiction. Yet it is good : some 
 of it is more than good : portions are excellent. Clear- 
 ness, vigor, the happy readiness of men who have 
 seen new wonders and who know that they have facts 
 which others are yearning to know — these are the 
 main traits of our earliest literature. 
 
 Just here the fact should be noted that in their 
 very conception and birth the literatures of New 
 England and of the South were unlike. The genial 
 air of Virginia and the rigorous climate of New 
 England, the artistic, adventurous, careless, and 
 somewhat dissolute Cavalier of the one and the stern, 
 blunt, restrained, and coldly righteous Puritan of 
 the other, the unceasing struggle of the Northerner 
 and the easy wealth of the Southerner, all could but 
 have their influence. On the one hand may be seen 
 the shrewd philosophy of an Emerson and the stern 
 religious tendency of a Bryant: on the other the 
 passionate eloquence of a Calhoun and the nature- 
 rapture of a Lanier. The literature of the South is 
 not merely geographically Southern; it is Southern 
 in thought, in feeling, and in histdry. 
 
 II 
 
 It has been said that the first writing of America 
 was one of information : in quality it may not be 
 of the best, but its quantity is surprisingly large. 
 
The Beginnings 19 
 
 Letters and tracts were written by thousands; for 
 king, peasant, priest, warrior and scholar, all were 
 interested in this strange, new land. Statements 
 upon the subject were encouraged by every one; by 
 the nobility that the kingdom miglat be enlarged; 
 by the clergy that the Church might be extended ; by 
 the common people that greater opportunities in life 
 might be offered. Many of those ancient documents 
 are yet preserved, and it is interesting to note how 
 unanimous all are in their glowing accounts of the 
 new region. The unbounded resources astonished 
 every one; "the abundance of fish of every kind, 
 countless flocks of land and water fowls, deers, hares, 
 rabbits, and other hunting without end : with much 
 fruit and eatable roots unknown at home." Grape- 
 vines, "as thick as a man's body," and gigantic trees 
 were frequently mentioned. Some writers, in their 
 enthusiasm, essayed poetry, as, for instance, did "R. 
 Rich, gent, one of the voyage," who, in his Newes 
 from Virginia, thus praises the resources : 
 
 "Great store of fowls, of venison. 
 
 Of grapes and mulberries. 
 Chestnuts, walnuts, and such like, 
 Of fruits and strawberries." 
 
 All these reports had a marvelous effect in Eng- 
 land, and in every tavern, theatre, and book-shop the 
 ravishing descriptions of the vast Virginia domain 
 passed from tongue to tongue. For England was 
 crowded. "The people," said a preacher of the day, 
 "doe swarm in the land as young bees in a hive in 
 June, the mighty overcoming the weak." And the 
 letters from the new territory mentioned, moreover, 
 the crying need, not of knights and courtiers, but of 
 skilled and willing laborers — a kind of advice which, 
 if followed, would have spared the evil days that 
 afterwards came to the little settlement. For the lack 
 of persistent work was the main weakness in the 
 
20 John Smith 
 
 entire movement. In the list of valuable articles 
 mentioned as exports we find "sassafras, fifty pounds 
 per tonne" and "sarsaparilla, two hundred pounds 
 per tonne," but the number of things resulting from 
 agricultural and industrial enterprise was an exceed- 
 ingly small one. Laziness and bad management 
 weakened the colony, and the observant Indians, 
 seeing the approaching feebleness, renounced their 
 former liberality and now often "pushed the bottom 
 of the basket up with their hands" in order that 
 less corn might make a bushel. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But among this careless band was one man whom 
 boldness, intellect, and common sense made a natural 
 leader, and whom circumstances made the first writer 
 in American Literature. It is a significant hint of 
 the future democracy of American Letters that the 
 earliest author bore that most democratic of all 
 names, John Smith. 
 
 A True Relation of Virginia is a small portion 
 of the title which Captain Smith (i 579-1 631) gave 
 the first American book; but as the 
 John Smith remainder would cover some ten or 
 — twelve lines, the reader will be spared. 
 
 (1579=1631) The volume was written during the 
 first thirteen months of the colonial 
 life, and the slow-sailing "Phoenix," leaving James- 
 town in June, 1608, probably carried it to London. 
 It was sold first at "the grey-hound in Paul's Church- 
 Yard," on almost the same day as that of Milton's 
 birth and within three blocks of the great poet's 
 birth-place. 
 
 Its author was a strange mingling of the auda- 
 cious warrior and the poetic Cavalier. Born at Wil- 
 loughby, England, in 1579, he early became imbued 
 
John Smith 21 
 
 with the venturesome spirit of his times; and his 
 entire Ufe is but a romantic story of dangers, strug- 
 gles, and hair-breadth escapes. He early enlisted 
 in the war against the Turks, was a prisoner for one 
 year, and later wandered through all the civilized 
 countries. In his twenty-seventh year he joined the 
 Virginia colonizing expedition and came with the 
 first settlers to Jamestown. There, as president of 
 the colony, he led a life of unceasing activity, dis* 
 playing an astonishing versatility, a firm leadership, 
 and a perseverance truly remarkable. He directed 
 all undertakings, built houses, cleared the forest, 
 traded with the Indians, judged and punished his 
 fellow colonists, explored the neighboring country, 
 drew maps, and in the midst of hunger, sickness, 
 and rebellion, wrote his most excellent and enter- 
 taining papers. 
 
 After having been with the colonists two years, 
 he returned to England in the fall of 1609, and 
 remained there until 1614 when he made a voyage 
 to New England. He went back with a map of the 
 country about Cape Cod, and in the next year started 
 out with several hundred colonists for this region. 
 But his ships were captured by French pirates and 
 he himself was sent a prisoner to Rochelle. His 
 usual good fortune did not desert him ; for he soon 
 escaped to England. It seems that his life was com- 
 paratively quiet from this time forth, and that, as 
 old age crept over him and as the bitterness caused 
 by some of his ill-fated schemes passed away, he 
 came to be looked upon as the greatest living 
 authority on explorations and colonization. The life 
 of such varied and strenuous activities ceased in 
 1631. 
 
 "A restless, vain, ambitious, overbearing, bluster- 
 ing fellow who made all men either his bot friends 
 or his bot enemies," he nevertheless belonged to that 
 
22 John Smith 
 
 sane and wholesome class of men that can both do 
 and express. Like several others of the Elizabethan 
 era, he was a man of action and of letters. He 
 remains to us as a well-rounded man, "not," to use 
 Professor Tyler's expression, "a doer who is dumb, 
 not a speech-maker who cannot do." Among his works 
 are several of historical importance today ; such as, A 
 True Relation of Virginia (1608), A Map of Vir- 
 ginia (1612), New England's Trials (1620), and 
 A Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and 
 the Summer Isles ( 1624) . Surely, this is not a bad 
 array for a man who had spent more of his days in 
 the wilderness than in the court, and who was 
 accustomed more to the wild speech of the red man 
 than to the soft words of knights and ladies. 
 
 The True Relation possesses something of the 
 charm of Robinson Crusoe. The adventures with 
 the Indians, the bold yet cautious journeys up the 
 unexplored James, the building of the village, the 
 departure of the ships, the many pleasures and sor- 
 rows, all these are quaintly described. It is the old 
 story, retold once more, of primitive life, of a return- 
 ing once more to Nature and a starting all over. Its 
 picturesque descriptions of pioneer life, aside from 
 their historical value, possess an absorbing interest 
 to a reader of today. And, yet, this was not an 
 intentional literary effort, but, rather, a tract, or 
 letter, of information written for the purpose of 
 encouraging the stock-holders of the Virginia Com- 
 pany. It is the work of a man proud of his efforts 
 and their results, and glowing with the fresh memo- 
 ries of strange adventures. Filled with resolution, 
 cheer, and hardiness, it is a little volume of pure, 
 racy English, highly worthy of being the first book 
 in a national literature. 
 
 The ship "Phoenix" carried the manuscript of the 
 True Relation to London ; three months later another 
 
John Smith 23 
 
 vessel came from England, bearing colonists, sup- 
 plies and a letter of complaint from the London ' 
 stock-holders. The result was the second piece of 
 American Literature. In a bold, vigorous, trench- 
 ant tract, John Smith made reply, — a reply in 
 which historians have pointed out the first intima- 
 tions of national life in America. For Smith fear- 
 lessly rebuked the English masters and refused to 
 follow instructions that he felt to be unjust and 
 injurious to the feeble settlement. His words are 
 plain and blunt : 
 
 "For the charge of this voyage of two or three 
 thousand pounds we have not received the value of 
 an hundred pounds. . . . From your ship we 
 had not provision in victuals worth twenty pounds ; 
 and we are more than two hundred to live upon 
 this, — the one half sick, the other little better. For 
 the sailors, I confess they daily make good cheer; 
 but our diet is a little meal and water, and not suffi- 
 cient of that Captain Ratcliffe is now 
 
 called Sicklemore. ... I have sent you him 
 home lest the company should cut his throat. . . . 
 When you send again I entreat you rather send but 
 thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, 
 blacksmiths, masons, and diggers-up of trees' roots, 
 well provided, than a thousand of such as we have ; 
 for except we be able both to lodge them and feed 
 them, the most will consume with want of neces- 
 saries, before they can be made good for anjrthing. 
 . . . These are the causes that have kept us in 
 Virginia from laying such a foundation that ere this 
 might have given much better content and satisfac- 
 tion : but as yet you must not look for any profitable 
 returns." 
 
 Well indeed may it be called "Hotspur rhetoric." 
 It is a first declaration of rights, put forth in terse 
 language and breathing that same spirit which in 
 
24 John Smith 
 
 another century brought forth the Declaration of 
 Independence and the Revolution. 
 
 A work composed at about the same time, but not 
 published until 1612, is ^ Map of the Bay and the 
 Rivers, with an Annexed Relation of the Countries 
 and Nations that Inhabit Them. Again Smith 
 shows his versatility. The article is one of much 
 scientific interest, dealing with the climate, topogra- 
 phy, fauna, flora, and natives, and the whole is 
 saved from traditional scientific dryness by the 
 enthusiasm and wit of its high-spirited author. 
 Here is a specimen paragraph : 
 
 "Here are mountains, hills, plains, valleys, rivers, 
 and brooks, all running most pleasantly into a fair 
 bay compassed, but for the mouth, with fruitful and 
 delightsome land. In the bay and rivers are many 
 isles, both great and small. . . . The moun- 
 tains are of divers natures, for at the head of the bay 
 the rocks are of a composition like millstones, some 
 of marble, and so forth. And many pieces like 
 crystal we found, as thrown down by water from 
 these mountains. . . . These waters wash from 
 the rocks such glistening tinctures that the ground 
 in some places seemeth as gilded; where both the 
 rocks and the earth are so splendent to behold that 
 better judgments than ours might have been per- 
 suaded they contained more than probabilities. The 
 vesture of the earth in most places doth manifestly 
 prove the nature of the soil to be lusty and very rich." 
 
 There is individuality in this form of writing, and 
 imagination and accuracy. It shows the power to 
 observe minutely, to choose with discrimination, 
 and to record with vigor. As a final example of 
 Smith's ability in this direction, let us notice his 
 description of Powhatan: 
 
 "He is of personage a tall, well proportioned man, 
 with a sour look, his head somewhat gray, his beard 
 
John Smith 25 
 
 so thin that it seemeth none at all, his age near sixty ; 
 of a very able and hardy body to endure any labor. 
 About his person ordinarily attendeth a guard of 
 forty or fifty of the tallest men his country doth 
 afford. Every night upon the four quarters of his 
 house are four sentinels, each from other a slight 
 shoot, and at every half hour one from the corps de 
 garde doth halloo, shaking his lips with his finger 
 between them; unto whom every sentinel doth 
 answer round from his stand. If any fail they pres- 
 ently send forth an officer that beateth him 
 extremely." 
 
 Such then were the earliest writings of America, 
 and such was their author. Hasty and boastful as 
 he was, we find in him a man of many noble qualities, 
 an adventurer ready and willing, a hero according 
 to many tests. He was possessed of many of the 
 minor faults prevalent in his century, but among' his 
 virtues were some unknown to many a soft-handed 
 courtier with whom he of necessity associated. His 
 influence on the literature of England was greater 
 than is generally supposed; for so frequently were 
 his exploits used in tales and plays that he was led 
 to exclaim, "They have acted my fatal tragedies 
 upon the stage and racked my relations at their 
 pleasure." 
 
 Just here may be noted again the difference 
 between the beginnings of Southern Literature and 
 those of New England Literature. The first writ- 
 ings of the Plymouth colony were the ponderous 
 efforts of a zealous but cold-spirited clergy, and 
 naturally their works showed too much of intellect 
 and too little of heart. The first writings of what 
 afterwards became known as "the South," thouglr 
 lacking, "perhaps, on the intellectual side, possessed 
 a life and a romantic spirit that make them enter- 
 taining to this day. The first American romance 
 
26 George Percy 
 
 is Captain John Smith's story of Pocahontas; its 
 tenderness would never have appealed to the stern 
 New England divines. 
 
 IV 
 
 There are many writers deserving of some mention 
 among the pioneers of Southern Literature : but we 
 can take notice of but a very few' of even the most 
 prominent. One of the most honorable and perhaps 
 the most highly respected of the early colonists was 
 George Percy (1586- 1632), brother of the great 
 Earl of Northumberland. 
 
 By means of his Discourse of the Plantations of 
 the Southern Colony in Virginia by the English we 
 are able to realize through what heroic 
 George suffering America became habitable 
 
 Percy for civilized man. This story, which 
 
 — tells the history of the colony from 
 
 (1586-1632) the beginning until September, 1607, 
 is written in plain, strong language 
 and is a graphic picture of the horrors of that first 
 summer, when disease, famine, and Indian treachery 
 destroyed the life of many and the hope of all. "If 
 it had not pleased God," he writes, "to put a terror 
 in the savages' hearts, we had all perished by those 
 wild and cruel pagans, being in that weak estate as 
 Ave were ; our men night and day groaning in every 
 corner of the fort most pitiful to hear. If there were 
 any conscience in men, it would make their hearts 
 to bleed to hear the pitiful murmurings and outcries 
 of our sick men without relief every night and day 
 for the space of six weeks ; some departing out of 
 the world, many times three or four in a night, in 
 the morning their bodies trailed out of their cabins 
 like dogs to be buried." 
 
William Strachey 27 
 
 V 
 
 From a literary point of view, perhaps the best 
 accounts of these early days were written by the 
 colonist, William Strachey. Little 
 William is known of the man other than the 
 
 Strachey few facts obtainable from his own 
 
 works. The time and place of his 
 birth are uncertain; but he was evidently a man of 
 considerable native ability and education. When 
 the body of colonists set sail in nine small vessels, 
 on the fifteenth of May, 1609, he was a passenger 
 on "The Sea Venture." It was a fearful journey, 
 eleven months in duration, and the tempest and ship- 
 wreck were so filled with terrifying scenes that 
 Strachey remembered each detail vividly. The ships 
 were scattered far and wide, and "The Sea Venture" 
 was cast upon the shores of the Bermudas. The 
 passengers spent the winter of 1609 on the island 
 and afterwards, in two small, clumsy vessels, made 
 from the wreckage of their former vessel, they set 
 sail and reached Jamestown in May, 1610. Within 
 a few weeks Thomas West, third Lord De la Warr, 
 came with fresh supplies and colonists. 
 
 The narrow escapes, the strange scenes, the heart- 
 rending misery on every hand, the joy at each arrival, 
 all these greatly affected Strachey, and, as he him- 
 self declared, he felt it his duty to record the wonder- 
 ful events. Therefore, during July, 1610, when he 
 had been in Virginia but three months, he wrote, at 
 Jamestown, A True Reportory of the Wrack and 
 Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Kt., upon and 
 from, the Islands of the Bermudas; his coming to 
 Virginia; and the estate of that colony then and 
 after under the government of the Lord La Warr. 
 It is a book of true literary merit, measured by any 
 standard of criticism, and we may well believe that 
 
28 William Strachey 
 
 from it Shakespeare caught the inspiration which 
 produced the weirdly beautiful Tempest. The man- 
 ner of telling the story is rapid, arousing, and always 
 vivid, while, in the description of the mighty storm 
 at sea, it rises to extraordinary effectiveness. 
 "... a dreadful storm and hideous began to 
 blow from out the Northeast, which, swelling and 
 roaring as it were by fits, some hours with more 
 violence than others, at length did beat all light from 
 heaven, which, like an hell of darkness, turned black 
 upon us, so much the more fuller of horror, as in 
 such cases horror and fear use to overrun the 
 troubled and overmastered senses of all, while (taken 
 up with amazement) the ears lay so sensible to the 
 terrible cries, and murmurs of the winds and dis- 
 traction of our Company, as who was most armed 
 and best prepared, was not a little shaken. 
 
 "For four and twenty hours the storm, in a rest- 
 less tumult, had blown so exceedingly, as we could 
 not apprehend in our imaginations any possibility 
 of greater violence, yet did we still find it, not only 
 more terrible, but more constant, fury added to fury, 
 and one storm urging a second, more outrageous 
 than the former, whether it so wrought upon our 
 fears, or indeed met with new forces. Sometimes 
 strikes in our Ship amongst women, and passengers 
 not used to such hurly and discomforts, made us 
 look one upon the other with troubled hearts, and 
 panting bosoms, our clamors drowned in the winds, 
 and the winds in thunder. Prayers might well be 
 in the hearts and lips, but drowned in the outcries 
 of the Officers, — nothing heard that could give com- 
 fort, nothing seen that might encourage hope." 
 
 Strachey went back to England in 1611, and, 
 although he did not return to Virginia, he always 
 seemed intensely interested in the welfare of the 
 struggling settlement. Perhaps the most ably written 
 
Alexander Whitaker 29 
 
 account of the movement is his Historie of Travaile 
 into Virginia, produced probably in 1612 but not 
 published until 1845. 
 
 VI 
 
 The clergyman who baptized Pocahontas and per- 
 formed her marriage ceremony was Alexander 
 
 Whitaker (1585-1613). Of all the 
 
 Alexander figures in early colonial history, with 
 
 Whitaker the possible exception of Roger Wil- 
 
 — Hams, this man showed the most god- 
 
 (1585=1613) like characteristics, the most sincere 
 
 spirit of sacrifice, and the most un- 
 flagging zeal for the uplifting of his brother men. 
 For, all the comforts that a well-to-do clergyman 
 might enjoy were his in his parish in Northern 
 England, while influential relations, native ability, 
 and learning bid fair to make him a leader in the 
 English Church. His father was the celebrated 
 divine, William Whitaker, master of Saint John's 
 College, Cambridge, and he himself had received his 
 degrees from the same university. Yet, the convic- 
 tion gradually settled upon him that his was the duty 
 of converting the Indians, and, "to the wonder of 
 his kindred and amazement of them that knew him," 
 he sailed, in 1611, with Sir Thomas Dale's party. 
 For more than three years this good man, "the 
 Apostle of Virginia," labored among the red men, 
 and then, in 161 3, met death by drowning. 
 
 The work which calls our attention to Whitaker 
 as a writer is his Good News from Virginia, pub- 
 lished in London in 1613. It was written after the 
 missionary had been in America two years, and con- 
 sequently whatever it records has an accurate and 
 authoritative character. As the book is the produc- 
 tion of a preacher, we should naturally expect it to 
 
30 Alexander Whitaker 
 
 smadk somewhat of the pulpit, and we are not sur- 
 prised to find it, as Crashawe declares, a "pithy and 
 godly exhortation interlaced with narratives of many 
 particulars touching the country, climate, and com- 
 modities." In fact, Whitaker actually takes a text 
 and, expounding upon it, shows that there is a com- 
 manding call for religious men in America. Yet, 
 despite the sermonizing trait, it is a book full of 
 cheer, enthusiasm, and far-seeing hope for the future. 
 Showing, throughout, the carefulness of the man of 
 letters, it is beautiful, moreover, because of its spirit 
 of human kindness. "They acknowledge," he writes 
 of the Indians, "that there is a great God, but know 
 him not . . . wherefore they serve the devil for 
 fear, after a most base manner. ... If this be 
 their life, what think you shall become of them after 
 death but to be partakers with the devil and his angels 
 in hell for evermore ?" Turning toward that beloved 
 England, from which he was a voluntary exile, he 
 exclaims, "Awake, you true-hearted Englishmen 
 . . . remember that the plantation is God's and 
 the reward your country's." 
 
 Earnest and ever zealous in spirit, his work has, 
 at the same time, the simplicity and the refinement 
 of the Cambridge scholar that he was. His produc- 
 tions are, from a literary standpoint, more than 
 good, and in any other period than the Elizabethan 
 era might have brought him into note as a prose 
 writer. He stands as does John Smith, both a doer 
 and an expresser, the man of action and the man of 
 letters, ever wholesome, ever satisfied with today and 
 its labors. 
 
 VII 
 
 In April, 1619, there came over with Governor 
 George Yeardley, a man of surprising brilliancy and 
 
John Pory 31 
 
 ability, yet one whose life had not 
 
 John Pory fulfilled the brilliant prophecies of his 
 
 — earlier days. For now, in his fiftieth 
 
 (1570=1635(?)year, his friends gently hinted that he 
 
 too zealously "followed the custom of 
 strong potations"; for his many winning qualities 
 had made life a trifle too easy for his own good. 
 His name was John Pory. With a Bachelor's and 
 a Master's degree from Cambridge, he had continued, 
 after his college days, a special study of geography 
 and commerce, and had gained very favorable notice 
 along this line through his translation of an Italian 
 work, A Geographical Historic of Africa. In 1605, 
 when he was thirty-five years of age, he was a mem- 
 ber of Parliament, and at that time he counted his 
 influential friends by the hundreds. 
 
 But the convivial spirit was gradually growing 
 upon him, and those interested in him, considering 
 it best to get him away from England, procured for 
 him the position as secretary of the Virginia colony. 
 Here, as in England, the same traits of strength and 
 of weakness showed themselves. He at once became 
 a general favorite, was made a member of the 
 colonial council, and was chosen speaker of the gen- 
 eral assembly. But continuous work was becoming 
 more and more distasteful, while he "followed the 
 custom of strong potations" to an extreme alarming 
 even in that Golden Age of the ale-house. At length, 
 in 1 62 1, he gave up all his offices and during the next 
 year sailed for England. The following year found 
 him again in Virginia, as a commissioner to investi- 
 gate colonial affairs; but in 1624 he returned to 
 London and there spent his remaining days. The 
 life of comparatively meagre fulfillment ended in' 
 September, 1635. 
 
 Although Pory found it indeed difficult to follow 
 the straight and narrow path, there was one thing 
 that he could do with a most happy facility : he could 
 
32 George Sandys 
 
 write. Brilliant and witty to a remarkable degree, 
 his accounts of his American experiences are exceed- 
 ingly entertaining specimens of spicy, racy English. 
 One of his best pieces is his letter to the English 
 statesman, Sir Dudley Carleton : for in this is such 
 a mixture of heterogeneous facts, satire, history, and 
 scientific notes as rarely occurs in one paper. The 
 raw settlers seem to afford him much amusement, 
 and they are frequently the object of his wit. He 
 writes of them thus : 
 
 "Nowe that your lordship may know that we are 
 not the veriest beggars in the worlde, our cowekeeper 
 here of James Citty on Sundays goes accowtered all 
 in freshe flaming silke; and a wife of one that in 
 England had professed the black arte, not of a 
 scholler, but of a collier of Crogdon, weares her 
 rough biver hatt with a faire perle hattband and a 
 silken suite thereto correspondent. But to leave the 
 Populace and to come higher : — the Governor here, 
 who at his first coming besides a great deale of worth 
 in his person, brought only his sword with him, was 
 at his late being in London, together with his lady, 
 out of his meer greetings here able to disburse very 
 near three thousand pounds to furnishe himselfe for 
 his voyage. And once within seven years I am 
 persuaded {dbsit invidia verba) that the Governor's 
 place here may be as profitable as the Lord Deputies 
 of Ireland." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Thus far all the literature of the New World had 
 
 been written mainly for geographical and other 
 
 scientific purposes. But now, for the 
 
 George first time on the American continent, a 
 
 Sandys work written for Literature's own 
 
 — ■ sake was produced. George Sandys 
 
 (1578-1644) (1578-1644), a polished gentleman 
 
 who walked the straggling streets of 
 
 Jamestown, decorated with a fashionable lace collar 
 
George Sandys 33 
 
 and a most carefully waxed mustache, had finished, 
 before the twentieth year of the colony's existence, 
 a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses so artistic 
 and so highly excellent as to run quickly into the 
 eighth edition and to receive hearty praise from 
 such men as Dryden and Pope. 
 
 Sandys was a man of note years before coming 
 to America. As the son of Edward Sandys, arch- 
 bishop of York, he had many relatives of standing 
 and influence. Indeed, one of his brothers was so 
 feared by James I that the royal sovereign, when 
 objecting to the man's appointment, is said to have 
 declared, "Choose the devil if you will, but not Sir 
 Edwin Sandys." The boy matriculated at Saint 
 Mary Hall, Oxford, in 1589, but took no degree. 
 From 1610 to 1615 he traveled extensively and in 
 the latter year published a scholarly and thoroughly 
 interesting account of his journey. It was during 
 this period that he visited the Holy Sepulchre at 
 Jerusalem and wrote A Hymn to My Redeemer. 
 When, therefore, he received the appointment as 
 treasurer of the Virginia Company, in 1621, he was 
 widely known as a traveler, as a scholar, as a prose 
 writer, and especially as a poet. For before his 
 departure for America the first five books of his 
 translation of Ovid had met with a most encouraging 
 reception and had quickly gone into a second edition. 
 Many friends feared that a residence in the wilder- 
 ness of America would stifle the poetic fire, and the 
 poet, Michael Drayton, for one, felt it his duty to 
 exhort the bard. 
 
 "Go on with Ovid, as you have begun 
 With the first five books ; let your numbers run 
 Glib as the former ; so shall it live long 
 And do much honor to the English tongue, 
 Entice the Muses thither to repair ; 
 Entreat them gently; train them to that air: 
 For they from hence may thither hap to fly." 
 
34 George Sandys 
 
 Such an exhortation, it would seem, was indeed 
 necessary; for, upon his appointment as a member 
 of the council, in 1624, additional duties were placed 
 upon the poet, while the management of a plantation 
 which he had acquired and the frequent quarrels 
 which he had with the council, the officials, and his 
 neighbors in general, must have consumed most of 
 the hours of day. But, as he himself declares, he 
 stole the hours of night, and, to the surprise and 
 delight of all, he published, in 1626, the remaining 
 ten books of the Metamorphoses. The work proved 
 to be a very artistic piece of literature and, as men- 
 tioned above, sold very rapidly. The poet's nature, 
 however, was evidently not so congenial as his 
 poetry, and he gradually lost his influence and finally 
 left Virginia in 163 1. In England he led a quiet 
 country life at Bexeley Abbey in Kent, where he, 
 "after his travaile over the world, retired himself for 
 his poetry and contemplation." There he died in 
 the spring of 1644. 
 
 Viewed from any standpoint, his translation of 
 Ovid is a remarkable one. And, indeed, when we 
 consider the circumstances attending the production 
 of the later books, the perseverance of the translator 
 seems little short of marvelous. Within a few 
 months after his arrival in Virginia the Indian 
 massacre of March, 1622, occurred, and the peaceful 
 community of Jamestown changed suddenly to a 
 blood-thirsty band of Indian hunters ; and there, 
 amidst such surroundings, and with the additional 
 cares of his office upon him, he wrote a poem, having, 
 as he declares, in the dedication, "wars and tumults 
 to bring it to light instead of the Muses." Dr. 
 Moses Coit Tyler has well spoken of it as "the first 
 utterance of the conscious literary spirit articulated 
 in America." Compressed into the same number of 
 lines as the original, it yet has a freedom that is as 
 
George Sandys 35 
 
 pleasing- as the literalness of the thought. Every 
 line bears evidence of scholarship and extreme 
 refinement, while a surprising dexterity in poetics 
 gives the whole a polish too frequently lacking in 
 translations. Not only the beauty but the passion 
 of the original is faithfully retained. For instance, 
 what could be more filled with the fire of inhuman 
 wrath and revenge than portions of the sixth book ? 
 Procne, avenging the unfaithfulness of her husband. 
 King Tereus, slays and prepares for the monarch's 
 table their own beloved son. The king, after he had 
 eaten heartily of the fearful banquet, called for his 
 little boy, Itys. 
 
 "Procne could not disguise her cruel joy, 
 In full fruition of her horrid ire, 
 Thou hast, said she, within thee thy desire. 
 He looks about, asks where ; and while again 
 He asks and calls, all bloody with the slain. 
 Forth like a Fury, Philonela flew 
 And at his face the head of Itys threw ; 
 Nor ever more than now desired a tongue 
 To express the joy of her revenged wrong. 
 He with loud outcries doth the board repel. 
 And calls the Furies from the depths. of hell; 
 Now tears his breast, and strives from thence in vain 
 To pull the abhorred food ; now weeps amain 
 And calls himself his son's unhappy tomb ; 
 Then draws his sword and through the guilty room 
 Pursues the sisters, who appear with wings 
 To cut the air ; and so they did. One sings 
 In woods ; the other near the house remains 
 And on her breast yet bears her murder's stains, 
 He, swift with grief and fury, in that space 
 His person changed. Long tufts of feathers grace 
 His shining crown ; his sword a bill became ; 
 His face all armed ; whom we a lapwing name." 
 
 It is a literary work in which America may feel 
 genuine and perhaps justifiable pride. For to_ no 
 small extent it is America's, written amidst the giant 
 trees of her virgin forest and beside the broad waters 
 of her unconstrained rivers ; and perhaps among such 
 
36 Henry Norwood 
 
 surroundings it acquired a dignity that it might not 
 have possessed, if written amidst the silken rustle of 
 the royal court. 
 
 IX 
 
 Details might be given about many other writers 
 of those earlier days; such as R. Rich, who came 
 to Virginia in 1609 and wrote his poetic Newes from 
 Virginia in 1610; and John Rolfe, who so simply 
 and yet so eloquently told why he chose his dusky 
 bride, Pocahontas. But the mere giving of a list of 
 writers does not explain the growth of a literature. 
 Let us, therefore, briefly notice three characters that, 
 because of their literary excellence and literary influ- 
 ence, stand out from among the many. 
 
 CoL. Henry Norwood, a relative of Governor 
 William Berkeley, was a traveler with the genius of a 
 
 true story-teller; and, consequently, 
 Henry when he made his adventurous trip to 
 
 Norwood the New World in 1641, he gave a 
 
 thrillingf account of it all under the 
 title A Voyage to Virginia. It has something of the 
 Robinson Crusoe character about it ; a multitude of 
 convincing details, accurate descriptions, exact geo- 
 graphical and quasi-scientific comments, all lending 
 much the same absorbing interest and air of reality 
 as Defoe's famous story. There is something of 
 the old charm of a sea-tale in it ; for sailors' talk and 
 storms and first views of long-wished-for land claim 
 our interest. It is the plain, straightforward story 
 of a man who has seen strange lands and stranger 
 adventures, who has suffered famine and faced 
 death, and who now tells a tale that needs no orna- 
 mentation to enhance its dramatic interest. It is a 
 narrative that doubtless would prove popular to the 
 average reader of this day. 
 
John Hammond 37 
 
 X 
 
 During these years a new colony had sprung up ; 
 a part of Virginia north of the Potomac had become 
 
 known as Maryland. It, too, contrib- 
 John uted its tithe to the first literature of 
 
 Hammond America. Father Andrew White 
 
 wrote an elegant Latin account of the 
 voyage made by the first settlers of the new colony, 
 and various topics of the same character were dis- 
 cussed by petty literary aspirants. Above all others, 
 however, stands one blunt fellow, whom we may 
 justly call the first man to express in literature a 
 true love and an uncompromising admiration for 
 America. John Hammond was his name. He 
 came to the new land in 1635. After nineteen years' 
 residence in the Virginia colony he removed to Mary- 
 land, and at length, in 1656, went on a visit to 
 England. He at once began to long for his Ameri- 
 can home, and declared that "by God's assistance" 
 he did not intend to be out of it again. "It is that 
 country in which I desire to spend the remnant of my 
 days, in which I covet to make my grave." 
 
 Here, then, is the first sign of that American 
 patriotism which becomes so vigorous within the 
 next half-century. Hammond looked at England, 
 not with the blind pride of a native, but with the 
 observant, critical eyes of a foreigner. He was on 
 the defensive. He felt it his duty, after a residence 
 of "upward of one and twenty years," to write a book, 
 denying the lies that had "blinded and kept off many 
 from going thither whose miseries and misfortunes 
 by staying in England are much to be lamented and 
 much to be pitied." The name of his book (1656) 
 is Leah and Rachel. An elegant account it is not; 
 for, as the author himself admits, its phrases are 
 often "harsh and disordered." But he had the Ben 
 Franklin cast of mind, strong, frank, and manly; and 
 
38 George Alsop 
 
 the truth told by him in rugged plainness becomes 
 convincing. Commenting upon the hypocritical 
 preachers who came to Virginia, he declares that 
 "very few of good conversation would adventure 
 thither . . . yet many came, such as wore black 
 coats and could babble in a pulpit, roar in a tavern, 
 exact from their parishioners, and rather by their 
 dissoluteness destroy than feed their flocks." 
 
 In all comparisons he is the true American ; his is 
 the best land on the globe. He pities the "base, 
 slavish, penurious life" of the English laborer. 
 Many, he thinks, "itch out their wearisome lives in 
 reliance of other men's charities, an uncertain and 
 unmanly expectation." Again, he writes : "I have 
 seriously considered when I have (passing the 
 streets) heard the several cries and noting the com- 
 modities and the worth of them they have carried 
 and cried up and down, how possibly a livelihood 
 could be exacted out of them, as to cry 'matches,' 
 'small coal,' 'blacking,' 'pen and ink,' 'thread,' 'laces,' 
 and a hundred more such kind of trifling merchan- 
 dises." It is the observing, shrewd, practical Amer- 
 ican who writes this, — the first specimen of his tribe. 
 He is impatient at the sight of oppression ; no excuse 
 is accepted for loss of time and of energy ; reverence 
 for customs does not blind his eyes to resulting 
 miseries. His work has the strong, masculine 
 healthiness of an intellect that has felt the freshness, 
 the unrestraint of a vast, new country. 
 
 XI 
 
 Hammond's book was published in 1656; in 1666 
 there appeared a little volume, entitled A Character 
 
 of the Province of Maryland. Its 
 George author, George Alsop, was a young 
 
 Alsop emigrant, who in 1658, being then in 
 
 his twentieth year, sold his labor for 
 four years in advance in order that he might secure 
 
Close of the First Period 39 
 
 passage to America. He was a thorough despiser of 
 Cromwell, and, as this had been the partial cause of 
 his leaving England, he at once returned upon the 
 accession of King Charles. But the few years that 
 he remained in Maryland served to make material 
 for the drollest papers of the early Colonial period. 
 Imbued with the spirit of mirth, it is indeed a "dish 
 of discourse." It is a mixture of prose and so-called 
 poetry, a jumble of interesting facts, ridiculous 
 descriptions, and indelicate and often vulgar asser- 
 tions. In Alsop we have the loud-laughing country 
 wit who is also able to write. He spares no one, not 
 even himself. Yet mingled with his humor is some 
 genuine enthusiasm for the productiveness of 
 America. 
 
 "Here, if the devil had such a vagary in his head 
 as he had once among the Gadarines, he might drown 
 a thousand head of hogs and they'd ne'er be missed ; 
 for the very woods of this province swarm with 
 them." And, again, he declares that "herds of deer 
 are as numerous in the province of Maryland as 
 cuckolds can be in London, only their horns are not 
 so well dressed and tipped with silver." The same 
 years that Alsop was writing his drolleries, the 
 psalm-singing settlers far north of him were calmly 
 reading a cheerful little volume dealing with eternal 
 damnation and other pleasant features of the here- 
 after, and entitled The Day of Doom. What a 
 contrast ! 
 
 XII 
 
 Here we may close the record of the first period in 
 Southern Literature. It is still a literature of trans- 
 ported Englishmen; but in the next 
 Close of the period it ceases to be such. Pride in 
 First Period America as a home-land is slowly 
 gaining expression; it is a period of 
 enthusiastic descriptions ; in its predominance of the 
 
40 Close of the First Period 
 
 material and nature-loving- over the religious and 
 sesthetic, it at once asserts one of the main differences 
 between the literatures of the two sections. 
 
 Meanwhile the New England settlement had begun 
 and was prospering. Stern Religion was its mon- 
 arch. The theological tone pervaded all thought, all 
 literature ; in the South it never had a start. In 1639 
 a printing press had been placed in the President 
 House at Harvard, and by 1640 that monstrosity of 
 verse, The Bay Psalm Book, had been printed. 
 Then followed a stream of really learned theology, 
 with, now and then, an almanac or semi-scientific 
 work for variety, until at length, in 1662, a book of 
 verse. The Day of Doom, mentioned above, changed 
 the current. The less austere type of character 
 found along the Southern coast began and continued 
 to run a different course. But all this becomes more 
 evident in the period that follows. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 (1676- I 740) 
 
 I 
 
 John Milton and American Literature were born 
 on almost the same dates. The year of his death 
 (1674) is nearly that of the end of what may be 
 considered the first period in the Southern branch 
 of that literature. But Milton's poetry did not 
 influence greatly the writings of the South either 
 in those first years or in the period now to be exam- 
 ined. He was too much a Puritan for these people, 
 was too severe, possessed too much moral earnest- 
 ness. The planter's life, with its easy contentment, 
 hospitality, and rough luxury, was not of the same 
 spirit. 
 
 Yet, from another source, there at length came 
 into the literature of the Virginia colonies the very 
 earnestness, the very thoughtfulness, the very moral 
 purpose that had made Milton distasteful to them 
 in his own day. That source was Bacon's Rebellion 
 (1676). From that time forth a notable change 
 came over all American writings. Of course, other 
 causes besides this small but valiant uprising helped 
 to bring in the new era. America was now becom- 
 ing a true home-land. There now lived many men 
 and women who had been born in Virginia, who 
 had seen no other land, and who possessed, there- 
 fore, a genuine love for these hills and valleys. Also, 
 
42 National Consciousness 
 
 in the earlier days every one who received any 
 education whatever had gone back to old England 
 for it; but now Harvard and Yale were at hand, 
 while in the colony itself, as early as 1693, William 
 and Mary College had been opened. Under the 
 management of its founder, James Blair, who was 
 its president for fifty years, it rapidly advanced in 
 both scholastic and financial ability, and by 1776 was 
 the richest educational institution in America. Again, 
 the fertility of the soil and the vast amount of 
 unclaimed land had made a comfortable living easy 
 to obtain, while the freedom from the restraints of 
 European life was something to be appreciated. 
 These circumstances and many others had changed 
 the people from a band of temporary colonists, ever 
 looking to an ultimate return to England, to a firmly 
 united community, or social body, contented with 
 their home and looking forward only to a greater 
 expansion of their own local activities. 
 
 The first three quarters of the century, then, had 
 been a period of transporting English civilization 
 and culture to America; the last quarter saw the 
 creation of a national consciousness. In this 
 period Southern colonists began to write for South- 
 ern colonists, and not for foreign readers. Origi- 
 nality began to assert itself. Local history, local 
 conditions, and, above all, local politics received 
 written discussion. Less was written now, it is true ; 
 for, in the lack of literary environment, production 
 languished; but what was written was more truly 
 American. It was far less geographical and descrip- 
 tive than the literature of the previous era : and the 
 reason is obvious. The men that composed the 
 greater portion of the body of readers were men of 
 the new land, acquainted with all the details of Amer- 
 ican life and its environments, and they cared noth- 
 
National Consciousness 43 
 
 ing for such matters. The condition of the govern- 
 ment and its movements were the new topics of 
 interest. 
 
 That the printing was not always done in America 
 is not surprising ; for in those early days it was that 
 Governor Berkeley covered his soul with infamy by 
 the words "I thank God there are no free schools 
 nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them 
 these hundred years." From 1729 until near the 
 Revolution there was but one printing press in 
 Virginia, and that one under official control, while 
 the first newspaper. The Virginia Gazette, was not 
 published until 1736. But despite these restraints, 
 inklings of statesmanship began to be perceived, 
 and for the first time the literature of the South, and 
 of America, for that matter, began to sound the 
 sturdy note of "We, the People." 
 
 Perhaps it would be well to review briefly the 
 causes and events of Bacon's Rebellion. When, in 
 1660, Charles II came to the throne, he treated his 
 loyal colony, Virginia, in a most ungrateful manner. 
 His first parliament passed navigation acts that 
 almost paralyzed her agriculture and industries; he 
 himself gave to his favorites immense tracts of land 
 that were not his to give ; he placed over the colonists 
 despotic and grasping officials. Providence evidently 
 did not consider the burden distressing enough, and 
 now a far greater calamity came upon the people. 
 There were yet in the colony old men who could tell 
 sickening stories of the great Indian massacres of 
 1622 and of 1639. Realities now took the place of 
 descriptions. In the spring of 1676 the savages 
 suddenly came down upon the outer settlements, and 
 blood and carnage destroyed all peace. Day by day 
 the suffering increased, yet, strange to say, William 
 Berkeley sat calmly in the governor's mansion and 
 pursued his usual social pleasures. The people were 
 
44 National Consciousness 
 
 astonished. Surely he did not understand the situa- 
 tion ! But for all their entreaties he gave but prom- 
 ises, and promises could not subdue the red man. 
 
 The settlers begged to be organized into an army 
 aqd to be led against the foe ; but the indolence and, 
 above all, the avarice of the governor prevented the 
 movement. Day by day the danger became more 
 threatening. At length the people decided to act. 
 They unanimously called upon a young man, 
 Nathaniel Bacon, to be their leader. Bacon, at this 
 time barely thirty years of age, was a lawyer, trained 
 in London for his profession, an orator, and, alto- 
 gether, a man of unusual endowment. Accepting 
 the leadership, he quickly organized the colonists, 
 inflicted a lasting punishment upon the savages, and 
 was at once proclaimed a rebel. William Berkeley 
 offered a reward for his capture, and many of his 
 followers were arrested. Then followed a number 
 of conflicts between the two men, in all of which, 
 however. Bacon came out victor. But before the 
 end of the year Bacon died, and twenty-five of his 
 followers were executed. Then it was that King 
 Charles made the sneering remark : "The old fool ! 
 In that naked country he has executed more people 
 than I have in all England for the murder of my 
 father." 
 
 It was a movement that sank deep into the hearts 
 of the people. Here was the first national hero ; here 
 the first general realization that the inhabitants of 
 the New World were a separate people, not only 
 geographically, but politically. In the character of 
 Southern Literature a notable change began to take 
 place, and at length there entered into the writings 
 a defensive spirit of argument and combativeness. 
 In style, however, this literature reflected the dis- 
 pleasing affectations of the English works of the 
 period. The simplicity and the picturesqueness of 
 
The Burwell Papers 45 
 
 such writers as Smith and Whitaker were lacking, 
 and now conceits often spun out their toilsome coil 
 to a wearisome length. But despite the gaudy 
 fleshly covering, the soul was one of earnestness. 
 
 II 
 
 The first concrete literary result of Bacon's Rebel- 
 lion was The Burwell Papers (1676), so named 
 
 because of the family in whose pos- 
 The Burwell session the manuscript so long re- 
 Papers mained. They form practically a 
 — history of the uprising. Opening in 
 (1676) the midst of a description of an Indian 
 
 fight (for the first pages are lost), 
 the story tells of the first savage atrocities, the plea 
 to Bacon to lead the people, the war and his brave 
 career in it, his sad and mysterious death, the deceit- 
 ful endeavors of his worthless successor, Ingram, 
 and, through it all, the admiration and love for the 
 heroic leader. 
 
 It is the old tale of jealousy and corruption in 
 high places. "They began," says the narrative, "to 
 have Bacon's merits in mistrust as a luminary that, 
 threatened an eclipse to their rising glories; for 
 though he was but a young man, yet they found that 
 he was master and owner of those induements 
 which constitute a complete man." He returned to 
 his home, branded as a rebel; but, having been 
 acquitted, he was restored to his place as a member 
 of the council and was offered a commission as 
 general. "Thus in the morning before his trial, he 
 was in his enemies' hope and his friends' fear, judged 
 for to receive the guerdon due to a rebel, . . . 
 and ere night crowned, the darling of the people's 
 hopes and desires, as the only man fit in Virginia 
 to put a stop unto the bloody resolutions of the 
 heathen." And, yet, "within two or three days the 
 
46 The Burwell Papers 
 
 people's hopes and his desires were both frustrated 
 by the governor's refusing to sign the promised 
 commission." Then it was that Bacon, with five 
 hundred colonists, hastened to the capital, demanded 
 his commission, and got it. Again he was pro- 
 claimed a rebel. "It vexed him to the heart . . . 
 for to think that while he was a-hunting wolves, 
 tigers, and foxes, which daily destroyed our harm- 
 less sheep and lambs, he and those with him should 
 be pursued in the rear with a full cry, as a mere 
 savage or no less ravenous beast." 
 
 But Bacon was not to be outwitted in either com- 
 bat or intrigue. Therefore, returning to Jamestown 
 and encamping near its borders, he searched the 
 country in all directions and secured the wife of 
 nearly every country gentleman then in the city. He 
 placed the colonial dames in front of his army and 
 dared the enemy to come forth. "Before they could 
 come to pierce their enemies' sides, they must be 
 obliged to dart their weapons through their wives' 
 breasts." Not a shot was fired, and Bacon gained 
 the day. But anxiety, exposure, and, perhaps, poison 
 soon brought death to the valiant leader, and his 
 body was secretly laid to rest by his discouraged 
 followers. 
 
 All this is a matter of history, and The Burwell 
 Papers are largely of historical importance. But 
 there is one portion of the manuscript of undoubted 
 literary merit. It is a poem "drawn by the man that 
 waited upon his person, as it is said, and who 
 attended his corpse to their burial place." Perhaps 
 this is true, but it is likely that a man holding a higher 
 place than nurse, wrote the dirge. It has a pleading 
 eloquence and a genuine tone of sorrow. 
 
 "Death, why so cruel ? What ! no other way 
 To manifest thy spleen, but thus to slay 
 Our hopes of safety, liberty, our all, 
 Which, through thy tyranny, with him must fall 
 To its late chaos ?......., 
 
Reason for Literary Barrenness 47 
 
 • . . Now we must complain, 
 Since thou in him hast more than thousands slain, 
 Whose lives and safeties did so much depend 
 On him their life, with him their lives must end. 
 
 Who now must heal those wounds or stop that blood 
 
 The heathen made, and drew into a flood? 
 
 Who is't must plead our cause? Nor trump, nor drum. 
 
 Nor deputations; these, alas, are dumb. 
 
 And cannot speak." 
 
 That the author of the little volume will never 
 be known seems certain; but that in this elegy to 
 Bacon we have the first original poem of literary 
 merit cannot be doubted. As true poetry it was 
 scarcely excelled by any written in England during 
 the next decade, and in America not equaled within 
 the following hundred years. Thus the first popular 
 uprising in the name of liberty in America was 
 dignified with verse worthy of the cause. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is a great pity that a period so auspiciously 
 begun did not bear rich literary results. This was, 
 however, an era of literary barrenness. 
 Reason for New England's productions were poor 
 Literary and narrow enough ; but the writings 
 
 Barrenness of that handicapped section were 
 gradually approaching the form and 
 spirit of pure literature. The reason for all this is 
 not hard to find. It lies in the difference between 
 the units of society in the two colonies. In the North, 
 the people, through necessity, chose the close, densely 
 populated community, the township, the village, and 
 the city; but in the South the county became the 
 measure of government, and frequently the one 
 center of interest in a vast area was the county court- 
 house. Many, many circumstances arising from the 
 
48 Reason for Literary Barrenness 
 
 first form of settlement made the Northern environ- 
 ment more stimulating for moral, literary, and, in 
 fact, all forms of intellectual progress. For the 
 social benefits accruing from concentrated organiza- 
 tion of industrial efforts, capital, church, and educa- 
 tion are not to be gainsaid. 
 
 The manor system of the South discouraged man- 
 ufactures, prevented united municipal endeavors, 
 and created a spirit of reluctance toward accepting 
 new movements. Rank was based largely on posses- 
 sion of land. Extensive, but not intensive, agricul- 
 ture wrought havoc to both soil and perseverance, 
 and sowed the seed of a characteristic Southern form 
 of poverty known as "land-poor." Such training 
 destroyed here the very kind of shrewdness and far- 
 seeing business ability which the New Englander 
 was so rapidly gaining. 
 
 Now, as a result of this system, there undoubtedly 
 existed an admirable degree of domestic felicity, 
 but, at the same time, too much individual independ- 
 ence and a consequent lack of co-operation in culture 
 movements. The New England system was far 
 more likely to cause greater consideration for the 
 opinions of others, while that of Virginia just as 
 certainly presented the danger of nourishing an 
 intolerance bom of ignorant egotism. In short, the 
 social structure, a sort of modernized feudal system, 
 with the destructive institution of slavery attached, 
 became a blighting force in a district which, by its 
 natural endowments, should at once have become the 
 most industrious, the most populous, and the richest 
 portion of North America. 
 
 Detrimental as were these conditions to industrial 
 progress, they were almost death-dealing in their 
 action upon Southern Literature. Politics became 
 the one positive intellectual force. The utter lack of 
 common schools caused such wide-spread ignorance 
 
Reason for Literary Barrenness 49 
 
 that, according to the Virginia historian, Campbell, 
 the first and second generations were far inferior 
 in knowledge to their ancestors. The very gentry 
 of the land were deficient in the rudiments of educa- 
 tion. Governor Spotswood, when dissolving the 
 Virginia assembly in 171 5, sneeringly said, "I 
 observe that the grand ruling party in your house 
 has not furnished chairmen of two of your standing 
 committees who can spell English or write com- 
 mon-sense, as the grievances under their own hand" 
 writing will manifest." Nor was this all. Religious 
 intolerance came forward with its benumbing influ- 
 ence. The burning of witches was not uncommon. 
 In 1632 a law was passed by the assembly of 
 Virginia, punishing all dissenters from the Episco- 
 pal Church, while in 1662 the penalty of banishment 
 was placed upon all persons refusing to have their 
 children baptized. All creeds other than that of 
 the Church of England were prohibited, and the 
 Quakers especially received bitter persecution. In 
 1 741 laws persecuting the Presbyterians were 
 enacted, and at an even later date (1746), the colony 
 inflicted cruel punishment upon Moravians and 
 Methodists. 
 
 Need the question be asked. Why was the period 
 a barren one in literature ? The wonder is that any- 
 thing worthy of preservation was saved. The words 
 of Professor Tyler, in his History of American 
 Literature, may be a little extreme but not greatly 
 so : "The units of the community isolated ; little 
 chance for mind to kindle mind; no schools; no 
 literary institutions, high or low ; no public libraries ; 
 no printing press; no intellectual freedom; no 
 religious freedom; the forces of society tending to 
 create two great classes : a class of vast landowners, 
 haughty, hospitable, indolent, passionate, given to 
 field-sports and politics, and a class of impoverished 
 
50 The History and Present State of Virginia 
 
 white plebeians and black serfs; — these constitute 
 a situation out of which may be evolved country- 
 gentlemen loud-lunged and jolly fox-hunters, militia 
 heroes, men of boundless domestic heartiness and 
 social grace, astute and imperious politicians, fiery 
 orators, and, by and by, here and there, some men 
 of elegant culture, most acquired abroad; here and 
 there, perhaps, after a while, a few amateur literary 
 men ; but no literary class, and almost no literature." 
 
 IV 
 
 However true all this may be, it is a source of 
 satisfaction to note that the period was not so barren 
 as circumstances warranted. It has 
 The History been said that the era was a time 
 and Present of national consciousness. The lit- 
 State of erary production which we shall now 
 
 Virginia consider is, in its very nature, strong 
 
 — evidence of such a condition. The 
 
 (1705). book is The History and Present 
 
 State of Virginia, written by Robert 
 BeverleYj and published in London in 1705. Bev- 
 erley was of an ancient Yorkshire family, and his 
 father, who had come to Virginia about 1663, was 
 a man of great importance in colonial affairs. Robert 
 was born in Virginia in 1675, received a good educa- 
 tion in England, and succeeded his father as clerk 
 of the Council of Virginia in 1697. Year after 
 year he had complete charge of all public records 
 of the colony, and he at length gained a more inti- 
 mate knowledge of the actual past and present 
 conditions in Virginia than any other man then 
 living. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that 
 when he saw the proof-sheets of Oldmixon's British 
 Empire in America, he turned away in disgust, and, 
 as an antidote, wrote his own accurate and, to this 
 day, entertaining book. 
 
The History and Present State of Virginia 51 
 
 The work received wide attention in England and 
 America, and within two years was translated into 
 the French. And the account is thoroughly worthy 
 of honor; for in its swift, direct, and frank style, 
 its evidence of love for man and Nature, and its 
 freedom from dull parts, it may well serve as a 
 model to the historian who would be both accurate 
 and popular. Beverley had a quaint personality 
 and a deal of sound sense, mingled with an artistic 
 perception of form and beauty. He describes with 
 vividness the horse-racing, cock-fighting, and other 
 diversions of the country-life of those old days, and, 
 along with such descriptions, most vigorously 
 defends slavery and praises Virginia women. He 
 never minces his words. After complaining bitterly 
 of the shiftless ways of the easily contented settlers, 
 he vents his disgust in the following words : 
 
 "Indeed some few Hides with much adoe are 
 tann'd and made into Servant's Shoes; but at so 
 careless a rate that the Planters don't care to buy 
 them, if they can get others. . . . Nay, they 
 are such abominable Ill-husbands that tho' their 
 Country be over-run with Wood, yet they have all 
 their Wooden Ware from England; their Cabinets, 
 Chairs, Tables, ... to the Eternal Reproach 
 of their Laziness. . . . They spunge upon the 
 Blessings of a warm Sun and a fruitful Soil, and 
 almost grutch the Pains of gathering in the Bounties 
 of the Earth." 
 
 Something of a Southern Ben Franklin, is he not? 
 But, outside of the worth of its contents and its 
 expression, it has a claim for distinction on still 
 another and perhaps more important ground. It 
 shows that at length the people of the South and of 
 America are beginning to consider themselves a 
 people; they have come to realize the fact that they 
 
52 The Sot- Weed Factor 
 
 have a past, and that this past is worthy of being 
 recorded. This is indeed a distinct advance in 
 national consciousness. 
 
 V 
 
 Another production worthy of our notice is decid- 
 edly characteristic of American Literature; it is a 
 bit of humor. In the year 1708 there 
 The appeared in London a little book 
 
 Sot-Weed entitled The Sot-Weed Factor; or A 
 Factor Voyage to Maryland — a satire in 
 
 — which is described the laws, govern- 
 
 (1708) mentj courts and constitutions of the 
 
 country, and also the buildings, feasts, 
 frolics, entertainments, and drunken humors of the 
 inhabitants in that part of America. The author 
 declared himself to be Ebenezer Cook, Gentleman; 
 but who he really was, or where he lived, we cannot 
 discover. So far, absolutely nothing is known 
 about him. Whoever he was, he went about the 
 work of ridiculing Maryland "with malice afore- 
 thought." 
 
 To begin with, he is not pleased with the voyage. 
 
 "Freighted with fools, from Plymouth sound. 
 To Maryland our ship was bound." 
 
 When he has landed, he opens a store ; the tobacco 
 agents, or, as he calls them, the "sot-weed factors," 
 come to him ; and his miseries begin. 
 
 "With neither stocking, hat, nor shoe, 
 These sot-weed planters crowd the shore, 
 In hue as tawny as a Moor, 
 Figures so strange, no god designed 
 To be a part of human kind ; 
 But wanton nature, void of rest, 
 Moulded the brittle clay in jest." 
 
The Sot-Weed Factor 53 
 
 By some phenomenal course of reasoning the 
 author comes to the conclusion that he has reached 
 the Land of Nod. However, after his first night's 
 battle with mosquitoes and other "domestic" insects 
 that roam of nights, he evidently changes his mind ; 
 for he gladly hastens into another part of the country. 
 It is there that he sees his first Indian, a delightful 
 sight. 
 
 "His manly shoulders, such as please 
 Widows and wives, were bathed in grease 
 Of cat and bear." 
 
 At length he goes to court, and in his description 
 of this scene, there is some real humor. 
 
 "We sat like others on the ground, 
 Carousing punch in open air. 
 Till crier did the court declare. 
 
 And straight the lawyers broke the peace. 
 
 Wrangling for plaintiff and defendant. 
 
 I thought they ne'er would make an end on't, 
 
 With nonsense, stuff, and false quotations. 
 
 With brazen lies and allegations. 
 
 And in the splitting of the cause, 
 
 They used such motions with their paws. 
 
 As showed their zeal was strongly bent 
 
 In blows to end the argument." 
 
 He also meets a Quaker, and forthwith the fol- 
 lower of Penn receives a jab. 
 
 "I met a Quaker, yea and nay; 
 A pious consecrated rogue; 
 Who neither swore nor kept his word, 
 But cheated in the fear of God ; 
 And when his debts he would not pay. 
 By Light Within he ran away." 
 
 Ebenezer Cook, Gentleman, meets numerous other 
 scoundrels in Maryland, and we are not surprised 
 when he declares that he is glad to escape with his 
 skin. Taken as a whole, the work is superior in wit 
 
54 Lawson's History of Carolina 
 
 and humor to anything hitherto written in either 
 New England or the South. In 1730 the same 
 author pubhshed Sot-Weed Redivivus; or the 
 Planter's Looking-Glass, in burlesque verse, calcu- 
 lated to the meridian of Maryland; but this second 
 attempt reminds one of Artemus Ward's sage remark 
 that "an occasional joke improves a comic paper." 
 
 VI 
 
 We have seen that in the first period the greater 
 portion of the literature was descriptive and geo- 
 graphical. The custom of writing 
 Lawson's about such subjects did not die out in 
 History of this second period. In 1714 (some 
 Carolina authorities say in 1709) there was 
 
 — published in London a sprightly piece 
 
 (1714) of writing, entitled The History of 
 
 Carolina, which is really not a history 
 at all, but rather a collection of descriptions, adven- 
 tures, and geographical data. And yet it must not 
 be considered as a dry, scientific work ; it is far other- 
 wise. Its author, John Lawson, a Scotchman of 
 considerable talent and wide knowledge, came to 
 Charlestown, S. C, in September, 1700, and after 
 remaining in that State about four months, went to 
 North Carolina. Here his attainments gained im- 
 mediate recognition, and he was soon appointed Sur- 
 veyor-General. During the twelve years that he held 
 this position he traveled thousands of miles, lived 
 amidst forests and streams, knew the Indian and the 
 wild animals, and became an enthusiastic and accu- 
 rate observer. And, luckily, he was as handy with 
 his pen as with his surveying instruments. As a 
 result, this Scotchman, who, by the merest accident, 
 had come to America, developed into one of the most 
 interesting and reliable descriptive writers of the 
 
Lawson's History of Carolina 55 
 
 colonial days, and his work is considered to our own 
 times as a valuable source of information on pioneer 
 life, Indian customs, climate, wild animals, wild 
 flowers, and a hundred and one other subjects of 
 interest to lovers of Nature and of primitive life. 
 The author wrote nothing more. In 171 2 the Indians 
 became intensely enraged with him because he sur- 
 veyed their land, and, according to the colonial 
 writer, William Byrd, he was waylaid and killed by 
 them. 
 
 Lawson's writings are somewhat in the form of a 
 diary, with not a little of the flavor possessed by a 
 modern magazine article that discusses some far 
 away and lately developed country. The volume 
 has many vivid descriptions; for, by his simple, 
 unaffected way of telling facts, the curious scenes 
 often stand before the reader with most satisfying 
 plainness. Of the country scenes in the Carolinas, 
 he says : 
 
 "Most of the plantations in Carolina naturally 
 enjoy a noble prospect of large and spacious rivers, 
 pleasant savannas, and fine meadows, with their 
 green liveries interwoven with beautiful flowers of 
 most glorious colors, which the several seasons 
 afford ; hedged in with pleasant groves of the ever- 
 famous tulip tree, the stately laurels, and bay, equal- 
 izing the oak in bigness and growth, myrtles, jessa- 
 mines, woodbines, honeysuckles, and several other 
 fragrant vines and evergreens, whose aspiring 
 branches shadow and interweave themselves with the 
 loftiest timbers, yielding a pleasant prospect, shade, 
 and smell, proper habitations for the sweet singing 
 birds, that melodiously entertain such as travel 
 through the woods of Carolina." 
 
 Again, his description of Charleston in 1700 is 
 interesting: "The town has very regular and fair 
 streets, in which are good buildings of brick and 
 
56 Lawson's History of Carolina 
 
 wood; and since my coming thence has had great 
 additions of beautiful, large brick buildings, besides 
 a strong fort and regular fortifications made to 
 defend the town. The inhabitants by their wise 
 management and industry have much improved the 
 country. . . . Their cohabiting in a town has 
 drawn to them ingenious people of most sciences, 
 whereby they have tutors amongst them that educate 
 their youth a la mode. . . . They have a well- 
 disciplined militia. . . . Their officers, both 
 infantry and cavalry, generally appear in scarlet 
 mountings, and as rich as in most regiments belong- 
 ing to the crown, which shows the richness and 
 grandeur of this colony." Such were the days of 
 old. In fact, to John Lawson the whole country is 
 a land of milk and honey. He calls North Carolina 
 (including then both the Carolinas) "a delicious 
 country," filled with all that man can desire. "These 
 are the blessings, under Heaven's protection, that 
 spin out the thread of life to its utmost extent, 
 and crown our days with the sweets of health and 
 plenty, which, when joined with content, renders the 
 possessors the happiest race of men upon earth." 
 
 Innumerable illustrations of Lawson's keen obser- 
 vation might be given. The Indian he considers a 
 remarkable people. "Their eyes are commonly full 
 and manly, and their gait sedate and majestic. They 
 never walk backward and forward, as we do, nor 
 contemplate on the affairs of loss and gain, the 
 things which daily perplex us. They are dexterous 
 and steady, both as to their hands and feet, to 
 admiration. They will walk over deep brooks and 
 creeks on the smallest poles, and that without fear or 
 concern. Nay, an Indian will walk on the ridge of 
 a barn or house and look down the gable, and spit 
 upon the ground, as unconcerned as if he was walk- 
 ing on terra firma." 
 
James Blair 57 
 
 Are not such expressions interesting? Though 
 written by a man who had never dabbled in literature, 
 the book is in many parts rather fascinating, and it 
 is never dull. By his enthusiasm for his adopted 
 home-land, and by his observing and recording 
 powers, he served America and American Literature 
 with royal good-will. 
 
 VII 
 
 In 1685 there came to Virginia a young Scotch- 
 man so zealous in the cause of God and education 
 that every student of Southern culture 
 James Blair must turn toward him as its founder. 
 — His name was James Blair, and he 
 
 (1656) was born in Scotland in 1656. He 
 
 received his scholastic education at the 
 University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 
 1673, ^"d until 1682 was rector of Cranston. As a 
 quiet, conventional clergyman, he saw stretching out 
 before him years of peacefulness and honor. And 
 yet, through the persuasion of the Bishop of London, 
 he gave it all up and left a land of refinement for one 
 of uncouthness and ignorance. But these very 
 defects of the new home seem to have fired him with 
 zeal, and at once there came about under his leader- 
 ship a great awakening of educational interest, and 
 among the gentry, at least, a loathing of the old 
 condition of contented ignorance. Possessing the 
 simple, strong, shrewd, persevering, positive, and 
 energetic nature of the typical Scotchman, he had to 
 fight, and forthwith he found his foe. 
 
 In no doubtful terms he pointed out to the colonists 
 their "fall from grace," as it were, and at once asked 
 for contributions for establishing a college. The 
 money was obtained; he went to England; he 
 obtained a charter and more money; and in 1693 he 
 
58 James Blair 
 
 returned to open the school. The establishment of 
 that first higher institution of learning in the South 
 has already been mentioned; but the enlightening 
 influence of William and Mary College cannot be 
 too greatly emphasized. At its first commencement 
 exercises people came for hundreds of miles, and 
 some even came in boats from distant parts of New 
 York and Pennsylvania. James Blair was, in all 
 truth, the founder of Southern culture. 
 
 All that we have said of this man has dealt with 
 him as a man of affairs. As a writer he deserves 
 some attention. In 1727, with the aid of Henry 
 Hartwell and Edward Chilton, he brought out in 
 London a little volume entitled The Present State of 
 Virginia and the College. It is a plain account with 
 statistics and facts to prove each statement, and it 
 praises and blames with absolute frankness. Accord- 
 ing to this book, the country has wonderful natural 
 advantages, but "if we inquire for . . . well 
 educated children, for industrious and thriving 
 people, or for an happy government in church and 
 state . . . it is certainly . . . one of the 
 poorest, miserablest, and worst countries in all 
 America that is inhabited by Christians." A more 
 strictly literary piece of work by Blair is his series of 
 discourses on Our Saviour's Divine Sermon on the 
 Mount. When a man can preach one hundred and 
 seventeen sermons on one subject, we are bound to 
 believe in the perseverance of the saints ! However, 
 these addresses received great praise in both England 
 and America; and they are indeed worthy of it all. 
 For each is short, concise, and pointed, while every 
 one shows a man trying to display not his own ability 
 but, rather, the ability of God. Logical and prac- 
 tical, they pleased both theologians and common 
 folk ; and doubtless, as in the case of his educational 
 endeavors, their seed is bearing fruit to this day. 
 
Jones' Present State of Virginia 59 
 
 VIII 
 
 Of the making of books there is no end — a truism 
 for the past as well as for the present. From the 
 raw settlements of Virginia there was 
 Jones' issued, in 1724, another descriptive 
 
 Present work, by name The Present State of 
 
 State of Virginia. Its author, Hugh Jones, 
 
 Virginia was professor of Mathematics in 
 
 — William and Mary College, rector of 
 
 (1724) Jamestown, chaplain of the colonial 
 
 assembly, and general worker for his 
 fellow-men. He was a practical man, who had 
 given up a position in England in order to do this 
 much-needed work in the new world, and in his 
 dealings with men, as well as in his books, he showed 
 himself a possessor of ideas, with a clear, frank way 
 of expressing them. Having seen the need of good 
 text-books in America, he had already written his 
 English Grammar, Accidence to Mathematics, and 
 Accidence to Christianity, and now, in his new 
 literary attempt, he claimed an equally practical 
 purpose, that of creating among the English a more 
 intelligent interest in America. 
 
 Like his fellow-worker in the college, James Blair, 
 he hides nothing. He praises the beauty of the 
 country and the many virtues of the people, but their 
 faults are handled with firm justice. "They are 
 more inclinable to read men by business and conver- 
 sation than to dive into books. . . . The com- 
 mon planters, leading easy lives, don't much admire 
 labor or any manly exercise except horse-racing, nor 
 diversion except cock-fighting. . . . This easy 
 way of living and the heat of the summer make some 
 very lazy, who are then said to be climate-struck." 
 The same glowing accounts as in all the former 
 writings are found in this little volume. "The plenty 
 
6o William Byrd 
 
 of the country and the good wages given to work 
 folks occasion very few poor, who are supported by 
 the parish, being such as are lame, sick, or decrepit 
 through age, distemper, accidents or some infirmities, 
 for where there is a numerous family of poor 
 children, the vestry takes care to bind them out 
 apprentices, by which means they are never tormented 
 with vagrants and vagabond beggars." Such were 
 the "good old days" in the South. 
 
 IX 
 
 We have seen that the people of the South were, 
 so far as education is concerned, dangerously near a 
 
 state of abject poverty; but here and 
 
 William there throughout the colonies was a 
 
 Byrd brilliant exception. The most brilliant 
 
 — of all was William Byrd (it is 
 
 (1674-1744) hardly necessary to mention that he 
 
 was Colonel William Byrd), a man of 
 such intellectual ability that even the Old World 
 honored him as a scholar. His father had come to 
 Virginia a few years before Bacon's Rebellion, and 
 there in the mansion at Westover, one of the vast 
 tracts of land owned by the family, the boy was born 
 in 1674. Inheriting enormous wealth and possess- 
 ing an intellect of great power, he added to these 
 endowments the advantage of study and travel 
 abroad. He studied in England, Holland, and 
 France, received his law training in the Inner 
 Temple, was elected a member of the Royal Society, 
 associated with the nobility of several nations, and 
 in early manhood returned to America, fitted in 
 every way to be a leader of men. And it seems that 
 he was immediately recognized as such. He was 
 appointed receiver-general of the king's revenues, 
 was chosen a member of the council — a position that 
 
William Byrd 61 
 
 he held for thirty-seven years, was elected its presi- 
 dent, founded the cities of Richmond and Petersburg, 
 was sent three times as an agent to England, was at 
 all times a "hearty friend to the liberties of his 
 country," and wrote some of the most pleasant, 
 sprightly, and entertaining prose in American Liter- 
 ature. A more versatile man has seldom lived in 
 this land of versatility. 
 
 Yet, he was unconsciously a man of letters. He 
 perhaps would have rejected the title; for such work 
 was considered a rather doubtful occupation for a 
 "gentleman." But today these very writings, acci- 
 dental though they were, compel us to believe him, 
 truly both a writer and a gentleman. Our memory 
 of him rests upon four pieces of work. A History 
 of the Dividing Line, A Progress to the Mines, A 
 Journey to the Land of Eden, and his Letters. As 
 the above facts sliow, he was a busy man, and, there- 
 fore, whatever he wrote was dashed off in brief 
 moments of leisure. How often indeed we shall 
 find this true of Southern writers ! They were men 
 of affairs first and men of letters afterwards. Few 
 indeed are the names of those who made letters the 
 first and great purpose of life. But Byrd is most 
 happy in these hurriedly written sketches. Perhaps 
 the very charms of the work arise from its quick 
 conception, — such charms as freshness, originality, 
 freedom from other men's thoughts, the personal 
 note, and wit uncopied. That Byrd had read widely, 
 however, is shown by his well-used library of nearly 
 four thousand volumes, and he might have copied 
 the customs of the best culture the world then knew. 
 His works are the production not of a book-worm, 
 but of a learned, observant lover of the world and 
 of men. 
 
 In the spring and autumn of 1729 Colonel Byrd 
 ran the dividing line between Virginia and North 
 Carolina, and the result of these sixteen weeks of 
 
62 William Byrd 
 
 travel was a little book entitled A History of the 
 Dividing Line, a volume full of charm to this day — 
 save for North Carolinians! For the colonel was 
 first a Virginian and then an American, and he 
 loved to pour out sarcasm on his neighbor, the Old 
 North State. He admitted that over in Virginia 
 they built in one district a church costing fifty 
 dollars and a tavern costing five hundred ; but that, 
 of course, was but another sign of Virginia hospi- 
 tality. But in North Carolina, according to Byrd, 
 there were no churches at all. The only people who 
 have no religion are "the Hottentots of the Cape of 
 Good Hope and of North Carolina. They (the 
 North Carolina Hottentots) account it among their 
 greatest advantages that they are not priest-ridden, 
 not remembering that the clergy is really guilty of 
 bestriding such as have the misfortune to be poor. 
 . . . They do not know Sunday from any other 
 day any more than Robinson Crusoe did; which 
 would give them a great advantage were they given 
 to be industrious. But they keep so many Sabbaths 
 every week that their disregard of the seventh day 
 has no manner of cruelty in it, either to servants 
 or cattle." It would seem, also, that these Carolin- 
 ians had no taste for classic architecture. "A citizen 
 here," Byrd declares, "is counted extravagant if he 
 has ambition to aspire to a brick chimney." Again : 
 "They pay no tribute either to God or Caesar." Of 
 one citizen and his consort the author gives this 
 description: "As for raiment he depended mostly 
 upon his length of beard, and she upon her length 
 of hair, part of which she brought decently forward, 
 and the rest dangled behind quite down to her rump, 
 like one of Herodotus' East Indian Pigmies. Thus 
 did these wretches live in a dirty state of nature and 
 were mere Adamites, innocence only excepted." 
 
William Byrd 63 
 
 But it must not be thought that Byrd's writings 
 show only the sarcastic jester; the humorous element 
 is but one entertaining trait among many. He notes 
 accurately and tersely facts about men, customs, 
 animals, soil, climate, geology, botany, a host of 
 subjects, and everywhere is shown the learned versa- 
 tility of the man. Notice his recital of the Indian 
 legend of a Christ: 
 
 "These Indians have a very old Tradition amongst 
 them, that many years ago their Nation was grown 
 so dishonest, that no man could keep any goods, or 
 so much as his loving Wife to himself. That, how- 
 ever, their God, being unwilling to root them out 
 for their crimes, did them the honor to send a Mes- 
 senger from Heaven to instruct them, and set Them 
 a perfect Example of Integrity and kind Behavior 
 towards one another. 
 
 "But this holy Person, with all his Eloquence and 
 Sanctity of Life was able to make very little Refor- 
 mation amongst them. Some few Old men did 
 listen a little to his Wholesome Advice, but all the 
 Young fellows were quite incorrigible. They not 
 only neglected his Precepts but derided and Evil 
 Entreated his Person. At last, taking upon Him 
 to reprove some young Rakes of the Conechta Clan 
 very sharply for their impiety, they were so provok'd 
 at the Freedom of his Rebukes that they tied him to 
 a Tree and shot him with Arrows through the heart. 
 But their God took instant Vengeance on all who 
 had a hand in that monstrous Act, by Lightning from 
 Heaven, and has ever since visited their Nation with 
 a continued Train of Calamities, nor will he ever 
 leave off punishing and wasting their People till he 
 shall have blotted every living Soul of them out of 
 the World." 
 
 It is unnecessary to notice in detail his other works. 
 Three years after writing the Dividing Line, he wrote 
 his Progress to the Mines, and in 1733, after making 
 
64 William Stith 
 
 a visit to his estate in North Carohna, in which State 
 a Governor Eden once ruled, he wrote his Journey 
 to the Land of Eden. The sarcasm of the title is 
 sufficiently plain. In all these books he showed 
 himself an ideal American, robust but not rough, 
 learned but not pedantic, humorous but not silly. 
 The closing lines of the inscription on his grave form 
 a most fitting tribute : "To all this [his training] 
 were added a great elegancy of taste and life, the 
 well-bred gentleman, and polite companion, the 
 splendid economist and prudent father of a family, 
 with the constant enemy of all exorbitant power, and 
 hearty friend to the liberties of his country. Nat. 
 Mar. 28, 1674. Mort. Aug. 26, 1744. An. setat. 
 70." 
 
 X 
 
 • Once more let us notice the fact that the only 
 college in the Southern colonies made its impress on 
 Southern Literature. This time the 
 William writer is William Stith, president 
 
 Stith of WiUiam and Mary College from 
 
 — 1752 until his death in 1755. He was 
 
 (1689-1755) a native of the colony, having been 
 born on one of the great estates in 
 1689, and, as a preacher, teacher, chaplain to the 
 House of Burgesses, president of the college, and 
 general leader in intellectual movements, he led the 
 same busy, thoughtful life as characterized some 
 other writers whom we have noticed. Through his 
 family influence, training, and mental endowments, 
 he was enabled to know just where and how to find 
 facts, statistics, and general data concerning the 
 birth and growth of the young colony; and, hence, 
 when he, at the age of fifty-eight, sat down to write 
 the history of his native land, he was indeed prepared 
 for the task. 
 
William Stith 65 
 
 The first volume was published at Williamsburg 
 in_ 1747 and was called The History of the First 
 Discovery and Settlement of Virginia. If Stith had 
 carried out the complete plan of the work, there 
 would have been probably eight volumes; but the 
 labor was never finished. The one volume is by no 
 means a light piece of work. In its more than three 
 hundred pages there is a conscientious presentation 
 of details and of proofs that reveals the nature of a 
 true scholar. Perhaps there is too much of this in 
 the narrative ; for after all he tells the story of only 
 the first seventeen years of the colony's existence. 
 Thomas Jefferson complains that the writer is 
 inelegant, but admits that he is very exact; and, 
 indeed, throughout all the dignified, sustained effort 
 we feel that here are accuracy and the confidence of 
 research. "I take it," Stith declares, "to be the main 
 part of the duty and office of an historian to paint 
 men and things in their true and lively colors, and to 
 do that justice to the vices and follies of princes and 
 great men after their death which it is not safe or 
 proper to do whilst they are alive." 
 
 Like Beverley and Blair before him, he speaks 
 simply and frankly. James I, he says, was "forever 
 erring very learnedly, with a wise saw or Latin 
 sentence in his mouth ; for he had been bred up under 
 Buchanan, one of the brightest geniuses and most 
 accomplished scholars of that age, who had given 
 him Greek and Latin in great waste and profusion, 
 but it was not in his power to give him good sense." 
 Plain and straightforward as his language generally 
 is, it does not lack an element of vivid picturesque- 
 ness. There are, indeed, some splendid descriptive 
 passages in the book. One of the most interesting 
 is the portion devoted to the man whom he admired 
 and loved above all other colonial figures — ^John 
 Smith. In closing the story he thus sums up the 
 virtues of the gallant captain : 
 
66 William Stith 
 
 "I shall finish his character with the testimonies of 
 some of his soldiers and fellow adventurers. They 
 own him to have made justice his first guide and 
 experience his second. That he was ever fruitful in 
 expedients, to provide for the people under his com- 
 mand. . . . That he rather chose to lead than 
 send his soldiers into danger ; and, upon all hazardous 
 or fatiguing expeditions, always shared everything 
 equally with his company and never desired any of 
 them to do or undergo anything that he was not 
 ready to do or undergo himself. That he hated 
 baseness, sloth, pride, and indignity, more than any 
 danger; that he would suffer want rather than 
 borrow; and starve sooner than not pay; that he 
 loved action more than words ; and hated falsehood 
 and covetousness worse than death; and that his 
 adventures gave life and subsistency to the colony, 
 and his loss was their ruin and destruction. . . . 
 That his wit, courage, and success here were worthy 
 of eternal memory. . . . That he had nothing 
 in him counterfeit or shy, but was open, honest, and 
 sincere; and that they never knew a soldier before 
 him so free from those military vices of wine, 
 tobacco, debts, dice, and oaths." 
 
 These are the words of a man looking back with 
 pride on his country's past. When William Stith 
 wrote such expressions there were men and women, 
 natives of America, whose hearts filled with pride for 
 their home-land. This, then, was in fact a period 
 of national consciousness, a time when there was 
 developing a home-love that, within a few years, 
 should lead the entire people into a long, continued 
 war of protest. 
 
William Stith 67 
 
 XI, 
 
 In conclusion, let us notice briefly a few other 
 writers of these last years of the period ; for, although 
 William Stith wrote his History in 1747, the next 
 distinct movement in Southern Literature had 
 begun and was asserting itself plainly by the year 
 1740. Among these less important writers may be 
 mentioned Francis Yonge, surveyor-general of 
 South Carolina in 1719 and author of A Narrative 
 of the Proceedings (1726). It is an interesting 
 account and shows that even at so early a date the 
 South Carolinians were getting into practice for 
 future rebellion. Another author was Sir John 
 Randolph (1693-1737) who, because of his position 
 as attorney-general of Virginia, knew personally all 
 the leaders in colonial life in his day, and who for- 
 tunately recorded his impressions in a chatty, familiar 
 little Breviate Book. And still another was Alex- 
 ander Garden. Garden was a Scotchman who 
 came to South Carolina in 1720 and lived in Charles- 
 ton until his death in 1756. For more than thirty- 
 four years he was rector of St. Philip's in that city, 
 and was, besides, during much of that time, com- 
 missary to the Bishop of London for the Carolinas, 
 Georgia, and the Bahama Islands. A man of strong, 
 stem opinions, just to all persons, strict in his own 
 actions, and expecting strictness in the actions of all 
 others, he soon became a power in Southern religious 
 life. Not one whit did he ever relax from the creed 
 and law of his Church. According to David Ram- 
 say, the historian of South Carolina, he gave to the 
 poor exactly one-tenth of his income, and he never 
 accepted more or less for performing a marriage 
 ceremony than the amount stated in the church law. 
 
 The cause of his introduction into this discussion 
 of Southern Literature is his vigorous tirade against 
 
68 Garden's Sermons 
 
 the great evangelist, George White- 
 Garden's field, who had come to America to 
 Sermons carry on a revival. In 1740 Garden 
 — wrote two sermons, entitled Regen- 
 
 (1740) eration and The Testimony of the 
 Spirit, and based on the text : "They 
 who have turned the world upside down have come 
 hither also." He hammered Whitefield most un- 
 mercifully. During the same year he wrote six 
 heated letters addressed to Whitefield, and in 1743 
 he reviewed the whole afifair in a long letter to a 
 friend. Garden was a confident and sharp contro- 
 versialist; indeed, in the New England States, with 
 a people more interested in religious affairs, he 
 doubtless would have shone brightly. He was not 
 a man of flattery. "As to the state of religion in 
 this province," he wrote, "it is bad enough, God 
 knows. Rome and the Devil have contrived to 
 crucify her 'twixt two thieves — Infidelity and Enthu- 
 siasm. The former, alas, too often still prevails; 
 but as to the latter, thanks to God, it is greatly sub- 
 sided, and even at the point of vanishing away. We 
 had here trances, visions, and revelations, both 
 'mongst blacks and whites, in abundance. . . . 
 Bad also is the present state of the poor orphan- 
 house in Georgia, — that land of lies, and from which 
 we have no truth, but what they can neither disguise 
 nor conceal. The whole colony is accounted here 
 one great lie from the beginning to this day; and 
 orphan-house, you know, is a part of the whole — a 
 scandalous bubble." 
 
 We close the second period of Southern Litera- 
 ture. No longer do the authors write books for 
 England ; they have readers at home, and that home 
 is America. Local history and local pride have been 
 created, and there is heard now the voice of a people 
 
Garden's Sermons 69 
 
 that feels itself to be different in environments, incli- 
 nations, and tendencies from the inhabitants of the 
 mother country. National consciousness is created ; 
 in its wake come protest and, at last, — Revolution. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 (1740-1810) 
 
 I 
 
 John Fiske has called the period from 1676 to 
 1776 a century of "political education." It was truly 
 a time of great advance in the intellectual standing 
 of the common people ; for, whereas the rural classes 
 of the seventeenth century thought but little and 
 read less, their descendants of the eighteenth century 
 were a wide-awake people, knowing the movements 
 of the world and studying the questions of govern- 
 ment and of general law. Among the aristocratic 
 classes there was oftentimes a culture comparing 
 favorably with that of the mother country. James 
 Blair, Hugh Jones, and their followers had not 
 labored in vain. 
 
 In the latter half of the seventeenth century the 
 English ardor for knowledge had been cooled 
 momentarily, but only momentarily, by the rude 
 plentifulness of the new way of living. Popular 
 free education had been a part of the earliest plans 
 of the Virginia Company. In 1621 the corporation 
 had resolved to appropriate funds for a free school, 
 to be called the East India School, and to be estab- 
 lished at Charles City. Then, to follow this, there 
 was to be a university, and a fund of several thou- 
 sand pounds had been given for this purpose. George 
 Thorpe came over to manage the undertaking, but 
 
72 The Revolutionary Period 
 
 in the fearful massacre of 1622 he perished, and with 
 him many who were enthusiastic about the idea. 
 Then followed the loss of power by the company, 
 and the control of colonial affairs passed into the 
 hands of people who cared more for American 
 tobacco than for American education. Thus the 
 revival in things intellectual was delayed until the 
 coming of Blair in 1692. 
 
 By 1740, however, there was a vast improvement. 
 Large estates, cultivated by wholesale slave labor, 
 had come into existence, and a peculiar type of aristo- 
 cratic, or, in some respects, patriarchal society was 
 growing in Virginia. Leisure and wealth came as 
 results. By 1777 William and Mary had developed 
 into an embryo university, with departments of law 
 and medicine ; and year by year it was sending forth 
 leaders of Southern thought. Fiske, in summing 
 up the history of this ancient institution, says: 
 "Though until lately its number of students at one 
 time has never reached one hundred and fifty, it has 
 given to our country fifteen senators and seventy 
 representatives in Congress ; seventeen governors of 
 States and thirty-seven judges; three presidents of 
 the United States: — Jeflferson, Monroe, and Tyler; 
 and the great Chief Justice Marshall. It was a noble 
 work for America that was done by the Scotch 
 parson, James Blair." 
 
 Art, music, and literature now gained some share 
 of attention, and the table in the dining-room ceased 
 to be the chief center of interest in the mansion. 
 Good private libraries became more frequent ; paint- 
 ings from "the Old Country" appeared in the great 
 rooms; and musical instruments held an honored 
 place in not a few homes. Among the effects of a 
 Virginia musician who died in 1755 were Handel's 
 Acis and Galatea and Apollo's Feast, four books 
 of the instrumental scores of Handel's oratorios, ten 
 
The Revolutionary Period 73 
 
 books of Handel's songs, the score of several Corelli 
 sonatas, and the productions of several other stand- 
 ard composers. By 171 6 Williamsburg had a theatre, 
 and from time to time English companies went there 
 and to Charleston. Amidst the steady growth of 
 such environments Southern Letters should have 
 developed into a high degree of artistic excellence. 
 Early colonial literature was a literature of manners 
 and customs, modeled after the English prose of the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century, and authors 
 might indeed have gone on indefinitely copying the 
 observant, personal, humorous note of the Spectator, 
 the Tatler, and the Rambler. But the Revolution 
 loomed up, and in its questions was absorbed the 
 greater intellectual life of both the North and the 
 South. 
 
 It would seem, moreover, that the genius of the 
 Southerner tended toward the making and inter- 
 preting of law and government. In the North the 
 church and the town-hall were the Meccas of 
 thought; but in the South the court-house was the 
 one center of genius and talent. Court-day "was a 
 holiday for all the country-side, especially in the fall 
 and spring. From all directions came in the people 
 on horseback, in wagons, and afoot. On the court- 
 house green assembled in indiscriminate confusion, 
 people of all classes, — the hunter from the back- 
 woods, the owner of a few acres, the grand proprie- 
 tor, and the grinning, heedless negro. Old debts 
 were settled, and new ones made; there were auc- 
 tions, transfers of property, and, if election times 
 were near, stump-speaking." From such an envi- 
 ronment came thrilling orations, forceful state- 
 papers, and that nation-creating bill of rights, the 
 Declaration of Independence. Some critics may 
 protest, indeed, that such works are not literature, 
 but if by "literature" be meant the written expression 
 
74 A True Narrative of Georgia 
 
 of a people's thoughts, permeated with passion and 
 stern conviction, then the Revolutionary period had 
 a literature, and that of noble quality. 
 
 Strangely enough, we shall find that nearly all 
 the writings are in prose. When the Germans and 
 the French go through the fiery furnace of war, they 
 never fail to come forth enriched by a new burst of 
 song, deep in sentiment, beautiful in form, lasting 
 in quality. But little true lyric verse came with the 
 American Revolution, not even in that lyric-produc- 
 ing section, the South; and save for a few bits of 
 energetic doggerel, scarcely any poetic inheritance 
 whatever was left. The rude verses may indeed have 
 inspired the Revolutionary heroes in their march 
 toward freedom ; but in the march of time these songs 
 have been shorn of influence and even of a memory. 
 
 In this first of the great moments "that tried men's 
 souls" we shall find an eloquent, strenuous, and often 
 bitter tone. No literature for literature's sake at 
 this time, mark you; but, rather, a literature for a 
 cause, a protest, a setting down of fundamental prin- 
 ciples, a striving toward a true perception of man's 
 relations to man. 
 
 II 
 
 In 1740, when the colony of Georgia was but 
 seven years of age, three citizens of that settlement 
 
 quarreled with Governor Oglethorpe 
 A True about their rights and the rights of 
 
 Narrative men in general; and these rebellious 
 of Georgia subjects were at length compelled to 
 
 flee. Their names were Patrick Tail- 
 fer, Hugh Anderson, and David Douglas. As their 
 names indicate, they were Scotch-Irish, a deter- 
 mined folk who, according to some wit, "hold fast 
 to the commandments of God and everything else 
 
A True Narrative of Georgia 75 
 
 they can get their hands on." In this case they held 
 fast to their argument. Early in the strife the three 
 Georgians retreated to Charleston, and there and in 
 London they published a bitter tirade against Ogle- 
 thorpe, entitled A True amd Historical Narrative of 
 Georgia. 
 
 It is a small book of one hundred and twelve 
 pages ; but, with its hammering method of relating 
 facts and proofs, it must have seemed to the gover- 
 nor a grievously large volume. It is a thundering 
 blast at the ignorance, unworthiness, and despotism 
 of the English colonial policy. Throwing high- 
 flown theories to the winds, it fearlessly charges 
 Oglethorpe and his officers with tyrannical and cruel 
 use, or misuse, of power, and calls upon the people 
 to throw off the yoke and assert their rights to liberty. 
 It is an early war-cry of the American Revolution. 
 
 The book, as Professor Moses Coit Tyler has 
 pointed out, contains these seven particulars, — delu- 
 sive reports in England of the natural advantages 
 of Georgia, restrictions upon the tenure and use of 
 its lands, enormous quit-rents, paralysis of agricul- 
 ture through Oglethorpe's refusal to admit negro- 
 labor, the cruel abuse of authority by Oglethorpe 
 and his subordinates, their neglect of manufactures, 
 and, finally, Oglethorpe's perversion of moneys 
 entrusted to him in Christian charity for the erection 
 of churches and schools. By its frequently restrained 
 and certain tone and by its calm statements of facts 
 it compels belief, and, at times, has something of the 
 merciless nature of a scientific investigation. And 
 what are its accusations ? "Very looks were crimi- 
 nal; and the grand sin of withstanding . . . 
 authority was punished without mercy." The picture 
 of Georgia is pathetic in its bitter simplicity. "Her 
 plantations a wild, her towns a desert, her villages 
 in rubbish, her improvements a byword, and her 
 
76 A True Narrative of Georgia 
 
 liberties a jest, an object of pity to friends, and of 
 insult, contempt and ridicule to enemies." Thus the 
 description continues. 
 
 But beyond all this is the exquisite sarcasm dis- 
 played in the dedication of the book to Oglethorpe. 
 His name, with titles of every description, stands at 
 the head, and with a most humble and mocking 
 sarcasm "Your Excellency" is thrust in from time 
 to time. This is indeed the American gift of talking 
 back. "May it please your Excellency, as the few 
 surviving remains of the colony of Georgia find it 
 necessary to present the world, and in particular 
 Great Britain, with a true state of that province from 
 its first rise to its present period, your Excellency 
 of all mankind, is but entitled to the dedication as 
 the principal author of its present strength and 
 affluence, freedom, and prosperity." The authors 
 compliment him on the highly distressing condition 
 of the colony. Many countries "fondly imagine it 
 necessary to communicate to such young settlements 
 the fullest rights and properties, all the immunities 
 of their mother-countries, and privileges rather 
 more extensive. . . . But your Excellency's 
 concern for our perpetual welfare could never permit 
 you to propose such transitory advantages for us. 
 You considered riches, like a divine and a philoso- 
 pher, as the irritamenta malorum, and knew that 
 they were disposed to inflate weak minds with pride, 
 to hamper the body with luxury and introduce a long 
 variety of evils. Thus have you 'protected us from 
 ourselves,' as Mr. Waller says, by keeping all earthly 
 comforts from us. You have afforded us the oppor- 
 tunity of arriving at the integrity of the primitive 
 times by entailing a more than primitive poverty on 
 us. . . . The valuable virtue of humility is 
 secured to us by your care to prevent our procuring, 
 or so much as seeing any negroes . . . lest our 
 
A True Narrative of Georgia 77 
 
 simplicity might mistake the poor Africans for 
 greater slaves than ourselves . . . 
 
 'Like Death you reign 
 O'er silent subjects and a desert plain.' " 
 
 Thus the literature of protest is fairly inaugurated 
 in the South. And notice that the very element in 
 which American Literature excels, humor, again 
 comes to the assistance of a great cause. Constantly 
 the bitterness increases; taunting is replaced by 
 threats ; and bolder declarations of the rights of the 
 governed are issued. We are reviewing a period, 
 not of artistic, but of earnest, virile literature. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the writing of any history of Literature it is a 
 question not so much of what to say as of what not 
 to say. So many facts might be recorded, so many 
 interesting sidelights might be given; but, plainly, 
 in any volume that is not a mere catalogue or encyclo- 
 pedia only those names that seem to betoken some 
 distinct step in the trend of a people's thoughts and 
 emotions can and should receive consideration. It 
 would be highly improper, if not absolutely unprofit- 
 able, to attempt a consideration of all. For instance, 
 A Journal of the Proceedings in Georgia (1742) by 
 William Stephens, president of the colony during 
 that year, might receive attention; for it gives the 
 other side of the controversy between the exiled 
 Georgians, mentioned in previous pages, and the 
 authorities of the settlement. But, since the book 
 has neither great artistic merit nor characteristic 
 thoughts and sentiments of the era, it does not merit 
 lengthy discussion. In our study of Southern Let- 
 ters, therefore, be it remembered that those works 
 receiving "honorable mention" must contain one or 
 
78 William Henry Drayton 
 
 the other of these two characteristics : artistic excel- 
 lence or characteristic phases of contemporary life, 
 thought, and sentiment. 
 
 Few indeed were the productions of high artistic 
 quality. For the period now before us was pre- 
 eminently an age of constructive statesmanship, and 
 the best intellectual energies were all employed more 
 or less in the great work of creating a nation. There- 
 fore, because of the peculiar trend of all thought in 
 the latter half of the eighteenth century, the litera- 
 ture, not only of the South, but of the North, found 
 its best expression in discussions of the rights of 
 man, declarations, state papers, and spirited orations. 
 The men of such an era write, not through love of 
 literature, but because their overwrought souls com- 
 pel expression of sincere emotion. 
 
 IV 
 
 In William Henry Drayton (1742-1779) we 
 have just such a man. Drayton, who was a South 
 
 Carolinian, has been called the political 
 William ancestor of John C. Calhoun, and he 
 
 Henry well deserves the title. For from the 
 
 Drayton day when he returned, as a very young 
 
 — man, from his studies at Oxford 
 
 (1742=1779) University, he made the power of his 
 
 justice and his uncompromising sense 
 of duty felt throughout the entire South. In 1760, 
 when associations were being formed everywhere for 
 the purpose of arousing patriotism, he wrote a protest 
 against such assemblies, declaring that they would 
 soon infringe on the rights of the individual States. 
 This is the first public expression of states'-rights in 
 America. King George, however, misinterpreted 
 the paper and, having come to the conclusion that 
 Drayton was rebuking the colonists for their rebel- 
 
Patrick Henry 79 
 
 lious spirit, rewarded the young man with a position 
 as judge of a South Carolina circuit. 
 
 But when, in 1774, the conditions were such that 
 it became dangerous to speak frankly, this man 
 revealed the true meaning of his former expression 
 by his Letter of a Freeman to the Deputies of 
 America in the High Court of Congress Assembled 
 at Philadelphia. It was a strong, clear-minded 
 appeal to the sense of justice, and to this day it is 
 decidedly interesting reading. It was not long 
 (1776) until the new government appointed him 
 Chief Justice of his native State, and it was then he 
 declared from the judge's bench that, so far as South 
 Carolina was concerned, King George had abdicated 
 the throne. It was while he was a member of the 
 Continental Congress in 1778 and working with 
 remarkable zeal for the new nation, that he suddenly 
 became ill and died. 
 
 Of such a character were the leaders of colonial 
 life and thought. This man, a judge, a statesman, 
 an orator, an official who was busy every hour of the 
 day, found time not only to write his stirring papers 
 on statecraft, but also to compile a great amount of 
 material for his History of the American Revolution. 
 Remember that with such men writing was neces- 
 sarily a work of the moment, the result of minutes 
 stolen from the ever-calling duties of the times. 
 
 V 
 
 This, as a period of constructive statesmanship, 
 was naturally a time of oratory. The voices of men 
 who could fuse the varied feelings of 
 Patrick the people were in demand, and, there- 
 
 Henry fore, we find in every colony, speakers 
 
 — who, by sincerity and passion, thrilled 
 
 (1736=1799) their audiences into effective activity. 
 Such a man was Patrick Henry. 
 
80 Patrick Henry 
 
 He was born at Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, 
 in 1736, and from the time of his birth until his 
 fifteenth or sixteenth year very few people were able 
 to see any good reason for his being alive. To say 
 that as a boy he was downright lazy would be 
 perhaps a violent assertion ; but his principal occupa- 
 tion in those early years seems to have been that of 
 taking as little interest as possible in any human 
 affair. Dull and careless, he was pointed out as the 
 most indolent boy in the neighborhood. 
 
 But suddenly there came into this boy's life a great 
 awakening. One day an old teacher came into the 
 country store where Henry was clerking and began 
 to tell the ancient stories of Greece and Rome. 
 Instantly the boy's attention was attracted, and from 
 that hour he was a different being. He learned to 
 love two subjects which formerly he had been too 
 indolent either to love or to despise — ^history and 
 literature. He saw the world in a different light; 
 he realized his weakness and his power. His read- 
 ing of Cicero aroused the desire to become a lawyer; 
 but at the age of eighteen he had married, and now 
 the cares of a family retarded him in such study. 
 Nevertheless, at the age of twenty-four, he was 
 admitted to the bar. And there in the county court- 
 house near his home, he won his earliest fame as an 
 orator. The clergy of Virginia had rebelled at the 
 amount of fees paid them and had carried the matter 
 into the colonial courts. Success seemed to be theirs, 
 and the defendants were in despair. Then it was 
 that Patrick Henry arose and made a defense so 
 marvelous that his listeners were benumbed with 
 wonder. "They can only tell you," writes his 
 biographer, Wirt, "that they were taken captive and 
 followed whithersoever he led them, and that at his 
 bidding, the tears flowed from pity, or the cheeks 
 flushed from indignation, and when it was over they 
 
Patrick Henry 81 
 
 felt as if they had awaked from an ecstatic dream, of 
 which they were unable to recall or connect the 
 particulars." It is said that during one sentence in 
 the speech, the clergy arose in a body and fled the 
 house. At its conclusion the people seemed wild in 
 their joy, and, in their desire to honor the young 
 orator, lifted him to their shoulders and carried him 
 hither and thither through the village. 
 
 From this time forward, his rise was exceedingly 
 rapid. In 1765 he became a member of the Virginia 
 House of Burgesses, and there presented his famous 
 "five resolutions" on the rights of the colony. Then 
 came in 1775 the dissolution of the assembly by order 
 of the royal governor, the momentous meeting in old 
 St. John's Church at Richmond, and that wildly 
 passionate appeal ending with the words : "I know 
 not what course others may take ; but as for me, give 
 me liberty or give me death !" 
 
 May, 1773, found him associated with Thomas 
 Jefferson, R. H. Lee, and Dabney Carr in the prepa- 
 ration of a resolution leading to more united action 
 on the part of the colonies. The next year he was 
 a leader in the Continental Congress. He was the 
 moving spirit in the Virginia convention of 1775, 
 and during the next year he became governor of that 
 colony, or State. After he had held the position 
 three times, he retired from public life (1791) and 
 devoted his time to his large law practice and to the 
 historical and literary studies that he so dearly loved. 
 He died at Red Hill, Charlotte County, Virginia, 
 June 6, 1799. 
 
 Patrick Henry stands in the unique position of 
 holding a place in literature without having written 
 for it. We have no faithful copy of any of his 
 speeches, and many of them indeed were never 
 written. It has been declared that his eloquence was 
 so great that none could listen and accurately report ; 
 
82 Thomas Jefferson 
 
 be this as it may, he possessed a marvelous influence 
 over all who heard him. George Mason said of him : 
 "He is by far the most powerful speaker that I have 
 ever . . . heard. . . . Your passions are 
 no longer your own when he addresses them. He is 
 in my opinion the first man upon this continent as 
 well in abilities as public virtues, and had he lived in 
 Rome about the time of the first Punic War, when 
 the Roman people had arrived at their meridian 
 glory, and their virtues not tarnished, Patrick 
 Henry's talents must have put him at the head of 
 that glorious commonwealth." And yet his eloquence 
 was not the result of art and training, but was 
 natural and spontaneous. 
 
 In him we have the great personality that fused 
 the heated but disconnected emotions of the Ameri- 
 can people into one vast national passion of glowing 
 patriotism, and set moving this patriotism in the field 
 of activity. He stands for the best that is American, 
 touched, in addition, with the fire and eloquence of 
 pure genius. 
 
 VI 
 
 On the twenty-first of June, 1775, there came to 
 
 Philadelphia, as a Virginia representative to the 
 
 Continental Congress, a young man 
 
 Thomas well known throughout the colonies 
 
 Jefferson for his learning, brilliance, and ability 
 
 — in expressing thought. And yet this 
 
 (1743-1826) young statesman — ^barely thirty-two 
 
 years of age — was so poor a public 
 
 speaker that none found pleasure or even interest in 
 
 listening to his few attempts. But given a pen, he 
 
 at once became the leader of all his colleagues. His 
 
 name was Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 "The Sage of Monticello," as he was affectionately 
 called, was bom at Shadwell, Albemarle county. 
 
Thomas Jefferson 83 
 
 Virginia, in 1743, the third son among ten children. 
 Fortunately, his was a family possessing both the 
 inclination and the means to give him the best educa- 
 tion that the land could afford. There was a strain 
 of Welsh blood in his ancestry, and his whole career 
 had something of the vivacity and imaginative tem- 
 perament belonging to that race. When the boy was 
 but fourteen his father died ; but the last breath of 
 the dying man gave the command that the son should 
 be educated at William and Mary. Accordingly, he 
 soon entered the institution and at once gained 
 notoriety by his brilliant scholarship and his sur- 
 passing ugliness. Big bones, big feet, big hands, 
 freckles and sandy hair — ^these were the most notice- 
 able features; but beneath all these was a mind 
 uncontaminated, receptive, eager, and hungering for 
 information and new thought. Physically and men- 
 tally he was soon recogfnized as the strongest man in 
 the college. He seemed to take an interest in every- 
 thing, and he himself declared that year after year 
 he studied fifteen hours a day. Every man is, at 
 some time in his life, influenced for better or for 
 worse by some one person ; and here, within the old 
 walls of this first of Southern colleges, Jefferson 
 found his guiding spirit. Dr. Small, the professor of 
 Mathematics, who "undoubtedly fixed the destinies" 
 of the statesman's life, giving him the love of 
 absolute freedom from prejudice and the willingness 
 to hear and examine that characterized his entire 
 career. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one he took charge of the 
 family estate, and, while managing it very success- 
 fully, studied law and was admitted to the bar at the 
 age of twenty-four. He soon gained a large prac- 
 tice, and two years later entered public life and began 
 that really marvelous rise toward eminence. And 
 yet he was not an orator. A husky voice and a lack 
 
84 Thomas Jefferson 
 
 of fluency destroyed the effect of his often thoughtful 
 utterances, while his dislike of expressing his 
 opinions before a crowd restrained him from making 
 many attempts. But, as we shall see, he was a 
 genius in at least one particular — the ability to write 
 a finished and forceful style. 
 
 Before he was thirty he had wooed and won the 
 beautiful widow, Mrs. Martha Skelton, and during 
 the next year her father died, leaving him four 
 thousand acres of farm land. Year by year his 
 talents, wealth, and influence increased. Becoming 
 a member of the House of Burgesses in 1769, he at 
 once gained recognition as an apt constructer of state 
 papers, and from that time forth passed rapidly from 
 one office to another. Only the merest outline of 
 his services can be given here. He drew up the bill 
 establishing courts of justice in the State, removed 
 the capital of Virginia to Richmond, advocated the 
 establishment of a system of free public education, 
 proposed the statute for religious freedom in Vir- 
 ginia, improved William and Mary College, founded 
 the University of Virginia, proposed the motto 
 "E Pluribus Unum," proposed the decimal system 
 for United States currency, caused the magnificent 
 Louisiana Purchase, was a member of the Virginia 
 House of Burgesses, a member of the Continental 
 Congress, governor of Virginia, three times minister 
 to France, Vice-President of the United States, twice 
 President of the United States, and author of the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 For forty-four years he was active in the public 
 service, and, yet, when he stepped from the White 
 House, he was so poor that he feared lest his cred- 
 itors should have him arrested before he could leave 
 Washington. Returning to his home, Monticello, 
 he devoted his last years to the establishing of the 
 University of Virginia. He died July 4, 1826. So 
 
Thomas Jefferson 85 
 
 much of his time had been given to the service of his 
 fellow-men and so little to the betterment of his own 
 affairs that the legislatures of South Carolina and of 
 Virginia felt it their duty to bestow upon his unmar- 
 ried daughter the sum of ten thousand dollars. Not 
 excepting Washington, he of all Americans, save 
 Lincoln, most nearly approached the ideal citizen of 
 a democracy; for he truly believed that every man 
 was his brother, and therefore entitled to his services. 
 And that those services were the only claim which 
 he wished to have on the memory of posterity is 
 plainly shown in the words placed, at his request, 
 upon his tomb : 
 
 Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the 
 
 Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 
 
 and Father of the University of 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 It is under the first of these claims that Jefferson 
 deserves attention in this study. His Autobiography, 
 his Parliamentary Manual, his Notes on the State of 
 Virginia, his papers on Hamilton and Adams, his 
 State Papers, and his Letters, all have a decidedly 
 literary quality ; but the greatest, most far-reaching 
 piece of writing done by him or any other man of 
 his day was the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 When, on the twenty-first of June, 1775, the 
 young Virginian became a member of the Continental 
 Congress, he entered, as John Adams has said, with 
 "a reputation for literature and a happy talent for 
 composition." His first public paper of consequence 
 was written in 1769 and was entitled Resolutions of 
 the Virginia House of Burgesses. It was a rather 
 weak, conciliating article; but it showed that even 
 
86 Thomas Jefferson 
 
 then a remarkable facility with the pen was his. In 
 1774 appeared his second important document, 
 published at Williamsburg, Virginia, and entitled 
 A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 
 a strong, frank, and aggressive statement declaring 
 the colonies "free and independent." With what 
 success that call was answered succeeding years have 
 told. 
 
 Many indeed have been the unfriendly criticisms 
 hurled at the Dechration of Independence, but all 
 admit that its author was a skillful phrase-maker; 
 he could, in fact, say the final word on a subject. 
 Throughout his career he had gained fame for 
 epigrammatic statements : "The whole art of gov- 
 ernment consists in the art of being honest ;" "Only 
 aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you 
 credit when you fail;" "Let those flatter who fear; 
 it is not an American art ;" "Government has nothing 
 to do with opinion ;" "Compulsion makes hypocrites, 
 not converts ;" "It is error alone that needs the sup- 
 port of government ; truth can stand by itself." He 
 was indeed just such a spokesman as the aroused, yet 
 fearing and often despairing, colonists needed. It 
 has been claimed that the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence is not original. We might well ask ourselves, 
 What is? The test of genius is not necessarily 
 originality in fundamental thoughts, but, rather, the 
 power to express the common ideas of mankind as 
 they have never been expressed before. Without 
 doubt Jefferson borrowed his ideas here, there and 
 everywhere. Some of them may be seen in the 
 Magna Charta itself. But note this fact : he took the 
 crude conceptions of his fellow-men and made these 
 conceptions instruments and weapons of emancipa- 
 tion. Most contemporary literature is temporary; 
 but we cannot conceive of a time when the Decla/ror 
 tion of Independence will not rouse the emotions of 
 
Thomas Jefferson 87 
 
 man. Yet, Rufus Choate has called it a mass of 
 "glittering and sounding generalities of natural 
 right," and many critics have agreed with him. 
 
 The paper could not have had complete originality. 
 Originality would have been fatal. It had to be 
 an expression of those emotions that had been 
 struggling for a century in the hearts of the people ; 
 otherwise it would not have been accepted. "He 
 deemed," says George Tucker, in his Life of Jefferson, 
 "the diffusion of knowledge among the people essen- 
 tial to the wise administration of a popular govern- 
 ment and even to its stability," and to the abiding 
 common sense of the people this appeal was made. 
 Its style has been attacked as bombastic and high- 
 flown ; but, as Moses Coit Tyler has pointed out, it 
 is written in the vernacular of all great state-papers 
 since the Magna Charta. Suppose Franklin, with 
 his blunt, humorous, earthy way of saying things, 
 had written the document; it would never have 
 brought conviction to earnest souls. It, however, 
 "made these colonies all alive." In choosing Thomas 
 Jefferson as their spokesman, the founders of a new 
 nation acted with most fortunate wisdom ; for, com- 
 ing from a section where there were a philosophic 
 tendency, a lack of the shrewdness, and a lack of the 
 immediate practicalness so characteristic of New 
 England, he possessed a broad nobility of intellect, 
 an imaginative sympathy, and a soul filled with the 
 ideals and best aspirations of his thrilling era. 
 
 The great document served its purpose, and the 
 nation still respects it and acknowledges its influence. 
 It undoubtedly gave a solid basis to the colonial con- 
 viction of justice ; it undoubtedly aided in the aboli- 
 tion of slavery ; it undoubtedly will assert itself again 
 in times of turbulence. It is founded on eternal 
 principles; its power cannot perish. 
 
88 George Washington 
 
 VII 
 
 That year, 1775, brought to light a host of gifted 
 men. It was on the sixteenth of June in this same 
 year that George Washington made his speech of 
 practical patriotism, accepting the appointment as 
 commander-in-chief. Then it was, too, that Rich- 
 ard Henry Lee of Virginia wrote the address, 
 adopted by Congress, showing good and just cause 
 for rebellion. Then, too, there began to write for 
 the public such men as Henry Laurens (1724- 
 1792), who in his Narrative of Confinement in the 
 Tower tells of his suffering for America's sake; 
 Joseph Galloway (1730-1803), who, in 1780, 
 wrote his Cool Thoughts on the Consequences in 
 Great Britain of American Independence ; John 
 Dickinson (1732-1808), whose political writings 
 were so confident and acute; David Ramsay ( 1749- 
 1815), the historian of Virginia; and James Madi- 
 son ( 1751-1836), the author of some of the strong- 
 est essays in The Federalist. Some of these deserve 
 more extended study. 
 
 George Bancroft has said of Washington: 
 "Whatever he took in hand, he applied himself to it 
 with ease, and his papers which have 
 George been prepared show how he almost 
 
 Washington imperceptibly gained the power of 
 — writing correctly; always expressing 
 
 (1732=1799) himself with clearness and directness, 
 often with felicity and grace." And 
 yet, as a boy, Washington's opportunities for train- 
 ing along literary lines were exceedingly limited. 
 The father died when the child was but eleven years 
 of age; his life in a sparsely settled country was not 
 conducive to extensive study; but, fortunately, he 
 had a wonderful mother, a woman whose wisdom, 
 reserve, and moderation imbued themselves into the 
 soul of her son. 
 
George Washington 89 
 
 He was born in 1732, at Pope's Creek, Virginia, 
 no great distance from Fredericksburg. His school- 
 ing \yas limited to a few months at a private institu- 
 tion in that town and a short term at a school near 
 his birthplace. It was during the latter course that 
 he received his only lessons in geometry and survey- 
 ing. His individuality was always marked. As a 
 very small boy his truthfulness and justice were so 
 recognized that his word or decision on any disputed 
 point was accepted as final by his schoolmates. But 
 this school-life ended when he was sixteen, and at 
 that age we find him holding a commission from the 
 president of William and Mary College as public 
 surveyor of Culpeper county. Thus early forced 
 into the trackless wilderness to rely upon himself, 
 he naturally developed into a strong, fearless, self- 
 reliant man. At nineteen he became adjutant-gen- 
 eral; and from that time on the story of his life is 
 so minutely told in the narrative of his country's 
 origin that we need not relate it here. 
 
 While on a visit to Williamsburg in 1758, he met 
 the beautiful widow, Mrs. Custis, and his courtship 
 was successful. "The wedding," says an old descrip- 
 tion, "was one of the most brilliant ever seen in a 
 church in Virginia. The bridegroom wore a suit 
 of blue cloth, the coat being lined with red silk and 
 ornamented with silver trimming ; his waistcoat was 
 embroidered with white satin, his knee-buckles were 
 gold, and his hair was powdered. The bride was 
 dressed in a white satin-quilted petticoat, a heavily 
 corded white silk overdress, diamond buckles, and 
 pearl ornaments." It was at this time that Wash- 
 ington resigned his commission and retired to Mount 
 Vernon to enjoy the country life that he so greatly 
 loved. A few months later he was called to Wil- 
 liamsburg to receive thanks for services to his 
 country. He was so embarrassed that he trembled 
 
90 George Washington 
 
 and stammered in his effort to respond. The words 
 of the chairman form a just description of the great 
 man's character. "Sit down," said he, "your modesty- 
 equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of 
 any language I possess." In 1775 he was again 
 called forth from his retirement to become com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army, and again, in 1789, to 
 become President of the new nation. Not until 1797 
 did he gain the longed-for opportunity to return to 
 his home, and yet he enjoyed it but two years; for 
 then came death. 
 
 The collected writings of Washington fill twelve 
 octavo volumes, and not a few of these pages are 
 splendid examples of their kind of writing. His 
 letters are especially illuminating, while his addresses 
 have a dignity and broadness about them befitting 
 the occasion of their birth. So simple, so sensible, 
 so true to himself: we involuntarily say. Every- 
 where are those qualities for which he was noted — 
 reserve and common sense. In his expressions he 
 was neither highly elegant nor graceful; he simply 
 said what he believed. And, yet, what practical 
 nobility is in many of his words. When accepting 
 his commission as commander-in-chief, June 16, 
 1775, he said: "As to pay. Sir, I beg leave to assure 
 the Congress, that, as no pecuniary consideration 
 could have tempted me to accept this arduous 
 employment, at the expense of my domestic ease and 
 happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. 
 I will keep an exact account of my expenses. Those, 
 I doubt not, they will discharge, and that is all I 
 desire." 
 
 His Farewell Address, pathetic in its circum- 
 stances, profound in its thought, and practical in its 
 every word, shows a man whom more than forty 
 years of service for others had made a philosopher. 
 
Laurens' Confinement in the Tower of London 91 
 
 "The unity of government which constitutes you one 
 people is also now dear to you. It is justly, so ; for 
 it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real inde- 
 pendence ; the support of your tranquillity at home ; 
 your peace abroad; of your safety; of your pros- 
 perity ; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. 
 . . . It is of infinite moment that you should 
 properly estimate the immense value of your national 
 union to your collective and individual happiness; 
 that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and 
 immovable attachment to it ; . . . watching for 
 its preservation with jealous anxiety; . . . and 
 indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of 
 every attempt to alienate any portion of our country 
 from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which 
 now link together the various parts." 
 
 VIII 
 
 If we wish to know the bitterness and the cruelty 
 of war, we can hardly go to a better source than 
 
 Laurens' Narrative of the Confine- 
 Laurens' ment in the Tower of London ( 1 782 ) . 
 
 Narrative It is a plain little story; told with 
 of the simplicity and grace, and yet in every 
 
 Confinement part most pathetic. And well it might 
 in the Tower be; for its author, Henry Laurens, told 
 of London but the true narrative of a bitter 
 — period in his life. 
 
 (1782) He was born at Charleston, South 
 
 Carolina, in 1724, and there received 
 his education and early amassed his great fortune. 
 In 1 77 1, he took his children abroad to have them 
 educated, and met many of the most illustrious men 
 of the period. He early took a practical interest in 
 colonial affairs, and, wealthy as he was, he served 
 in person through some of the rough campaigns 
 
92 Laurens' Confinement in the Tower of London 
 
 against the Indians. In 1775 we find him a member 
 of the Continental Congress, of which he afterwards 
 became the president, and president of the Council 
 of Safety; he was vice-president of South Carolina 
 in 1770, again a member of the Continental Congress 
 in 1777, a commissioner to Holland to secure a treaty 
 and a loan, and one of the ministers appointed in 
 1782 to negotiate peace with Great Britain. Worn 
 out in the service of his country, he died at Charles- 
 ton in 1792. 
 
 It was while on the voyage to Holland in 1780 
 that he was captured by the British and confined 
 for fifteen months in the Tower of London. Here 
 he passed those days of such cruel humiliation that 
 the simple narration of them rouses one's blood. Yet 
 he was a sturdy old fellow — "the noblest Roman 
 of them all," Tyler calls him. "As I was entering 
 the house, I heard some of the people say, 'Poor old 
 gentleman, bowed down with infirmities. He is 
 come to lay his bones here.' My reflection was, 'I 
 shall not leave a bone with you.' " And thus he 
 goes on, weaving his interesting story. "And now 
 I found myself a close prisoner indeed; shut up in 
 two small rooms, which together made about twenty 
 feet square; a warder my constant companion; and 
 a fixed bayonet under my window; not a friend 
 to converse with, and no prospect of a correspond- 
 ence." Having been tempted to escape, he writes, 
 "I had always said, 'I hate the name of a runaway.' 
 At length I put a stop to farther application by say- 
 ing, 'I will not attempt to escape. The gates were 
 opened for me to enter; they shall be opened for 
 me to go out of the Tower. God Almighty sent 
 me here for some purpose. I am determined to see 
 the end of it.' " It all makes a fascinating story, 
 this picture of an uncompromising, manly soul, and 
 contains the germ of a real classic, if genius should 
 seize upon it. 
 
James Madison 93 
 
 IX 
 
 The fact must never be lost sight of that this was 
 an era of constructive statesmanship, a period when 
 all men of extraordinary intellectual power devoted 
 their genius, not to scientific or poetic inventions, 
 but to earnest striving for truth as it concerns 
 human rights and government. It was just such a 
 trend of thought that brought forth the really mag- 
 nificent collection of political papers embodied in 
 The Federalist, and caused the development of such 
 a character as James Madison, one of the contribu- 
 tors. 
 
 Madison, who was naturally of a philosophic turn 
 of mind, fortunately had splendid advantages in 
 observing the development of the 
 James "nation-feeling" and the gradual rise 
 
 Madison of governmental institutions. Born 
 
 — at Port Conway, Virginia, in 175 1, he 
 
 (1751=1836) spent his boyhood among men who 
 had the desire and leisure in abun- 
 dance tO' discuss and study the movements in the, 
 politic world, and statecraft in general; and when, 
 at the age of twenty, he graduated from Princeton, 
 the spirit of rebellion had pervaded every nook and 
 hamlet of his country. Nine years later we find 
 him a delegate from Virginia to the Continental 
 Congress, and in 1787 a member of the Constitu- 
 tional Convention. From 1789 to 1797 he repre- 
 sented his State in Congress; in 1798 he drew up 
 the Virginia Resolutions; in 1801 he was Secretary 
 of State; in 1808 and again in 1812, he was chosen 
 President of the United States. It was under his 
 administration, therefore, that the second war with 
 Great Britain was declared. A man with such a 
 record might well write with authority on the fun- 
 damental principles of government making and 
 government maintenance. 
 
94 James Madison 
 
 Today his opinions on such matters demand the 
 respectful attention of all students of constitutional 
 history; for in their logical clearness, confidence, 
 and firmness, they stand out in relief amidst the 
 impassioned eloquence of many of his contempo- 
 raries. And, yet, by their very reserve and calm 
 deliberateness, his writings have a certain intense 
 eloquence. "But why," he writes in The Federalist, 
 "is the experiment of an extended Republic to be 
 rejected merely because it may comprise what is 
 new ? Is it not the glory of the people of America, 
 that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the 
 opinions of former times and other nations, they 
 have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, 
 for custom, or for names, to overrule the sugges- 
 tions of their own good sense, the knowledge of 
 their own situation, and the lessons of their own 
 experience ? . . . Happily for America, — happily, 
 we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a 
 new and more noble course. . . . They reared 
 the fabrics of government which have no model on 
 the face of the globe." 
 
 Madison's appeal was to the intellect rather than 
 to the emotions. His writings put the statement 
 before you boldly but calmly; they give the "pro's" 
 and "con's" of the argument; they measured the 
 value of each ; they show illustrations from history ; 
 they make a comparative study of governments; 
 there is a touch of the philosopher in it all. As John 
 Fiske says, "he was pre-eminently the scholar, the 
 profound constructive thinker, and his limitations 
 were such as belong to that character." And, yet, 
 beneath the exterior of this "profound construc- 
 tive thinker," was the warm heart of a patriot, a 
 man whose words of advice are worthy of memory. 
 "The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my 
 convictions is. That the Union of the States be 
 
David Ramsay 95 
 
 cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to 
 it be regarded as a Pandora with her box open, and 
 the disgnised one as the serpent creeping with his 
 deadly wiles into Paradise." 
 
 X 
 
 The period was not without its historians and 
 biographers. Especially is this true of the closing 
 years of the eighteenth century and the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century. When, after years of excite- 
 ment, privation, and war, the nation assumed its 
 national character and began its marvelous career of 
 development, men who, in its creation, had given the 
 energies of their minds to constructive legislation, 
 now began, in their later days, to look back along that 
 strange path of history and to see then, as never 
 before, the real greatness of their deeds. We shall 
 find in these more peaceful writings the same talent 
 that characterized the more impassioned utterances 
 of the war days. Chief among such writers in the 
 South were David Ramsay (1749-1815), John 
 Marshall (1755-1835), "Parson" Mason L. 
 Weems (1760-1825), and William Wirt (1772- 
 
 1834). 
 It must be remembered that an exceedingly small 
 
 number of Southern writers have been writers by 
 profession. They have been lawyers 
 David or physicians or planters or workers 
 
 Ramsay in the more practical, money-making 
 
 — professions of life, and writers only 
 
 (1749=1815) because their tastes and their leisure 
 were so fortunate as to meet in litera- 
 ture. Of such a type was David Ramsay. He was 
 bom in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, but after 
 graduating at Princeton and taking a medical course 
 at the University of Pennsylvania, he removed to 
 
96 David Ramsay 
 
 Charleston, South Carolina, and there soon gained 
 fame as a physician and as an ardent advocate of 
 American rights. He was made a delegate to the 
 Continental Congress, was a member of the Com- 
 mittee of Safety, became a surgeon in the army, was 
 one of forty prominent citizens sent as hostages to 
 St. Augustine after the capture of Charleston in 
 1780, and was in confinement for eleven months. 
 His death was a tragic one ; he was shot in the streets 
 of Charleston by a maniac. 
 
 A man who thus knew the events and characters 
 of the great struggle one would naturally consider 
 very capable of writing a trustworthy history. Such 
 is indeed the case. His work is impartial, filled with 
 evidences of personal knowledge, and written with 
 a vivacity that shows his memory to have been vivid. 
 And it is surprising, too, to see how much this busy 
 man of the world found time to write. Besides his 
 orations and medical essays there are his History of 
 the Revolution in South Carolina ( 1785 ) , his History 
 of the American Revolution (1789), his Life of 
 Washington (1797), his History of South Carolina 
 (1809), his History of the United States (1846), 
 and his twelve volumes entitled Universal History 
 Americanized ( 1 8 1 9 ) . All of these are written with 
 a fullness, a confidence, and an easiness of style that 
 show the old physician to have gone to a very fine 
 school for historians — the school of experience. He 
 tells the story of what he himself has seen and heard, 
 and there is often a resulting picturesqueness. 
 Notice, for an instance of this, his description of an 
 Indian treaty : 
 
 "When the governor had finished his speech, 
 Chulochculak arose, and in answer spoke to the 
 following effect : 
 
 " 'What I now speak, our father, the great king, 
 should hear. We are brothers to the people of 
 
David Ramsay 97 
 
 Carolina, one house covers us all' Then taking a 
 boy by the hand, he presented him to the governor, 
 saying, 'We, our wives, and our children, are all 
 children of the great king George; I have brought 
 this child that when he grows up he may remember 
 our agreement on this day, and tell it to the next 
 generation that it may be known forever.' Then 
 opening his bag of earth, and laying the same at the 
 governor's feet, he said, 'We freely surrender a part 
 of our lands to the great king. The French want 
 our possessions, but we will defend them while one 
 of our nation shall remain alive.' Then, delivering 
 the governor a string of wampum, in confirmation of 
 what he said, he added, 'My speech is at an end — it 
 is the voice of the Cherokee nation. I hope the 
 governor will send it to the king that it may be kept 
 forever.' " 
 
 It may be seen from this one illustration that David 
 Ramsay was not a mere expounder of facts. There 
 are throughout all his work a philosophic view and 
 a certain broadness characteristic of a thoughtful, 
 observant man. "Many circumstances occurred," 
 says he, "to make the American war particularly 
 calamitous. It was originally a civil war, in the 
 estimation of both parties, and a rebellion to its termi- 
 nation in the opinion of one of them. Unfortunately 
 for mankind, doubts have been entertained of the 
 obligatory force of the law of nations in such cases. 
 The refinement of modern ages has stripped war of 
 half its horrors, but the systems of some illiberal men 
 have tended to reproduce the barbarism of Gothic 
 times, by withholding the benefits of that refinement 
 from those who are effecting revolutions. An 
 enlightened philanthropist embraces the whole human 
 race, and inquires not whether an object of distress 
 is or is not an unit of an acknowledged nation. It 
 is sufficient that he is a child of the same common 
 
98 John Marshall 
 
 parent, and capable of happiness or misery. The 
 prevalence of such a temper would have greatly- 
 lessened the calamities of the American war, but 
 while from contracted policy, unfortunate captives 
 were considered as not entitled to the treatment of 
 prisoners, they were often doomed, without being 
 guilty, to sufifer the punishment due to criminals." 
 
 There is something more than the mere narration 
 of facts in such history as that. It is the form of 
 spirited description which can be told only by one 
 who has moved in the midst of stirring events. In 
 this busy physician we have one of the first of those 
 American historians who have made the history of 
 their country a study of unceasing delight. 
 
 XI 
 
 In these, our modern days, it has become very 
 much a fad among American writers to advocate by 
 
 both example and precept the stren- 
 
 John uous ; but it is really surprising to see 
 
 Marshall how actively and in what manifold 
 
 — ways the writers of those colonial days 
 
 (1755-1835) used their talents. We have seen it in 
 
 Jefferson, Laurens, and Ramsay, and 
 again it may be observed in the brilliant and profound 
 chief justice, John Marshall. He was a native of 
 Virginia, and, therefore, since he did not choose to 
 become a doctor or a preacher, he naturally studied 
 law. After having served in the Revolution, he 
 built up a splendid practice in Richmond and took a 
 prominent part in the movements immediately pre- 
 ceding and following the formation of the constitu- 
 tional government. He was a member of the Vir- 
 ginia convention to ratify the Constitution; in 1797 
 he was appointed an envoy to France ; two years later 
 he was a member of Congress from Virginia; during 
 
John Marshall 99 
 
 the next year he was appointed Secretary of State ; 
 and in 1801 he became Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court. 
 
 Every moment of his time, it would seem, was 
 occupied in public service ; and, yet, during the first 
 years of the nineteenth century he found time to 
 write a most thorough Life of Washington, together 
 with a large number of papers dealing with the Con- 
 stitution. In all of this work, it must be noted, there 
 is no sign of haste, no dashing off of a mere senti- 
 ment, but everywhere, no matter what the subject, 
 the deep, exact thinking of a natural jurist. As 
 Thomas Hart Benton has said, "a solid judgment, 
 great reasoning power, acute and penetrating mind" 
 were his, and even to this day his closely knitted logic 
 and general firmness of tone are refreshingly virile. 
 The very phraseology of his decisions has the char- 
 acter of an intellectual stimulus; we unconsciously 
 begin to admire their author. His ideals were high. 
 "The judicial department," he wrote, "comes home 
 in its effects to every man's fireside ; it passes on his 
 property, his reputation, his life, his all. Is it not to 
 the last degree important that he [the judge] should 
 be rendered perfectly and completely independent, 
 with nothing to influence or control him, but God, 
 and his conscience ? . . . I have always thoug'ht, 
 from my earliest youth until now, that the greatest 
 scourge an angry Heaven ever inflicted upon an 
 ungrateful and sinning people was an ignorant, a 
 corrupt, or a dependent judiciary." 
 
 In Marshall we indeed find one of the great 
 culminations of the legal trend in the South ; for back 
 of him were nearly two hundred years of political 
 discussion, statecraft, and study of law in its every 
 phase; all about him in the environment of both his 
 boyhood and his manhood was the one ever-present 
 question : What is government ? 
 
100 Mason Weems 
 
 XII 
 
 No matter how serious and troubled the age, there 
 is always some fellow whose very nature so bubbles 
 over with frivolity that we gladly 
 Mason forgive his levity and look upon him 
 
 Weems as a most relieving contrast amidst 
 
 — the deeper and more staid folk. In 
 
 (1760=1825) the dispensation of Providence it so 
 happened that the literature of the 
 South during this period had its wearer of the cap 
 and bells. His name was "Parson" Mason L. 
 Weems, and he was a Virginian. He was educated 
 in London for the ministry and did indeed, for a 
 number of years, have charge of Pohick Church in 
 Mount Vernon parish ; but there are indications that 
 he considered his talent "wasted on the desert air." 
 At length, however, his health gave out ; but not so 
 his tongue. He turned book-agent! His success 
 was immediate; for he was "equally ready for a 
 stump, a fair, or a pulpit." In versatility he was 
 indeed a surprise. As fiddler, preacher, politician, 
 book-agent, and writer, he entertained both high 
 and low, and when he published his books, everybody 
 wanted to see what the "parson" had written. 
 
 What books he did write! He was not always 
 certain of his facts, it is true; but, then, he could 
 easily invent them when necessary. Imagination 
 was one of his fortes, and his Lives of Washing- 
 ton, Franklin, Marion, and Penn are replete with 
 incidents which, after we see them in these books, 
 we are sorry didn't happen. His version of Wash- 
 ington and the hatchet is delicious, but, alas, the 
 heartless historian has proved it a creature of 
 Weems' imagination. But be it said to the author's 
 credit, the mere fact of his making it seem so true 
 that a whole nation rebels against giving it up, 
 proves him a genius in the story-telling line. The 
 
William Wirt lOI 
 
 actual words of the little legend are rarely heard 
 nowadays : "Presently George and his hatchet make 
 their appearance. 'George,' said his father, 'do you 
 know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree 
 yonder in the garden?' This was a tough question, 
 and George staggered under it for a moment; but 
 quickly recovered himself ; and, looking at his father, 
 with the sweet face of youth brightened with the 
 inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he 
 bravely cried out, 'I can't tell a lie. Pa ; you know I 
 can't tell a He; I did cut it with my hatchet!' — 'Run 
 to my arms, you dearest boy,' said his father, in 
 transports, 'run to my arms. Glad am I, George, 
 that you ever killed my tree, for you have paid me 
 for it a thousand-fold. Such an act of heroism in 
 my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though 
 blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest 
 gold!'" 
 
 "Parson" Weems could tell a story with such 
 profound confidence and delightful vivacity that the 
 reader of his day was ashamed to doubt. His style 
 is dashing and always attractive, while at times 
 there is a real eloquence in his work. In a more 
 cultivated stage of American life he might have 
 been lifted into a higher plane and might have 
 become one of the greater writers of American 
 Literature. As it is, he is simply — "Parson" Weems. 
 
 XIII 
 
 In William Wirt we find a man of undoubted 
 
 literary talent. He was an honest lover of letters, 
 
 and in his last years, when sorrow had 
 
 William fallen heavily upon him, he often 
 
 Wirt exclaimed, "All, all is vanity and 
 
 — vexation of spirit, except religion, 
 
 (1772=1834) friendship, and literature." And, yet, 
 
 he had viewed life through many 
 
102 William Wirt 
 
 kinds of activities. He was a native of Maryland, 
 having- been born at Bladensburg in that State in 
 1772; but in his twenty-first year he removed to 
 Virginia, and there began his career of usefulness 
 and success. In 1801 he was made chancellor of 
 Virginia, in 181 6 United States district-attorney, 
 and in 181 7 United States attorney-general. As 
 did many of his contemporaries, he made writing a 
 recreation, and, as a result, we have a number of 
 light and thoroughly well-written sketches. His 
 most solid piece of work is his Life of Patrick Henry, 
 a model biography in its sympathetic insight of the 
 character discussed ; but in his Letters of the British 
 Spy, Rainbow (essays), and Old Bachelor (written 
 with the aid of Dabney Carr, George Tucker, and 
 others), we see the writer in a far more entertaining 
 mood. The most widely read of these. Letters of 
 the British Spy, consists of ten letters supposed to 
 have been left at an American inn by a British spy, 
 and gives an account of the great men of the day 
 and ideas on things in general. 
 
 There are in Wirt's writing a luxuriance and an 
 easiness not at all common in the literature of this 
 period. There is no straining for stateliness and 
 dignity, but, rather, iri a face-to-face way he tells of 
 the experiences through which he has passed or of 
 which he has heard. Perhaps no better means of 
 showing the connectedness, the gracefulness, and 
 the thoroughly entertaining character of his manner 
 can be devised than the giving of a simple illustra- 
 tion from Letters of the British Spy. He is describ- 
 ing the eloquent sermon of a blind preacher: "He 
 then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour ; 
 his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his 
 crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole his- 
 tory; but never until then had I heard the circum- 
 stances so selected, so arranged, so colored ! It was 
 
William Wirt 103 
 
 all new ; and I seemed to have heard it for the first 
 time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, 
 that his voice trembled on every syllable ; and every 
 heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His 
 peculiar phrases had that force of description, that 
 the original scene appeared to be at that moment 
 acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of 
 the Jews ; the staring, frightful distortions of malice 
 and rage. We saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with 
 a flame of indignation ; and my hands were involun- 
 tarily and convulsively clinched. 
 
 "But when he came to touch on the patience, the 
 forgiving meekness of our Saviour ; when he drew 
 to the life his blessed eyes streaming in tears to 
 heaven ; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle 
 prayer of pardon on his enemies, 'Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do,' — the voice 
 of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew 
 fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely 
 obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised. his 
 handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and 
 irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is incon- 
 ceivable. The whole house resounded with the 
 mingled groans and sobs and shrieks of the congre- 
 gation. 
 
 "It was some time before the tumult had subsided, 
 so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging 
 by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own 
 weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situa- 
 tion of the preacher. For I could not conceive how 
 he would be able to let his audience down from the 
 height to which he had wound them, without impair- 
 ing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or 
 perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. 
 But — no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime 
 as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. 
 
104 William Wirt 
 
 "The first sentence with which he broke the awful 
 silence was a quotation from Rousseau : 'Socrates 
 died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God !' " 
 
 XIV 
 
 Others deserve perhaps some study in detail ; but 
 only the most notable may obtain it here. John 
 JoACHiN ZuBLY of Georgia, who in 1769 wrote ^w 
 Humble Enquiry into the Nature of the Depend- 
 ency of the American Colonies upon the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain and the Rights of Parliament 
 to Lay Taxes on the Said Colonies, is worthy of 
 notice. He aided the colonists with tongue and pen 
 up to the point of revolution; but he could go no 
 further. At length he declared that man who strove 
 to separate the two countries to be a criminal. "Let 
 him be accursed by both," he wrote; and forthwith 
 he became a supporter of the British. Another 
 advocate of that side was Jonathan Boucher, an 
 Englishman who came to America in 1759. Four 
 years later he was ordained by the Bishop of London 
 and until 1775 was a rector in Virginia and Mary- 
 land. In that year he was "outlawed" and com- 
 pelled to return to England. For the man was frank, 
 — too frank for his own good, and in his effort "to 
 check the immense mischief that was impending," 
 he was often in grave danger. "For more than six 
 months," he declares, "I preached, when I did 
 preach, with a pair of loaded pistols lying on the 
 cushion; having given notice that if any one 
 attempted to drag me out of the pulpit, I should 
 think thyself justified in repelling violence by vio- 
 lence." Upon returning to London, he published 
 A View of the Causes and Consequences of the 
 American Revolution, a book which shows admira- 
 ble sincerity and intellectual power, but, yet, is not 
 
William Wirt 105 
 
 quite the book for an American. "There is no 
 power but of God: the powers that be. are ordained 
 of God. The first father was the first king." In 
 his eyes, therefore, the Revolution was clearly a 
 crime. 
 
 Again, some mention should be made of Daniel 
 DuLANY of Maryland, a graduate of Cambridge, 
 whose Consideration on the Propriety of Imposing 
 Taxes in the British Colonies was so invincible in 
 its arguments that Pitt took it into Parliament and 
 held it up to the admiration of his colleagues. It is 
 a noteworthy fact that from this day the great 
 British statesman advocated a colonial policy fol- 
 lowing in almost every particular the principles laid 
 down by Dulany. Then, also, two members of the 
 Lee family served the new nation with their pen — 
 Arthur Lee, a graduate of Edinburgh, who for 
 the sake of the American cause, brought forth in 
 England The Monitor (1768), The Political Detec- 
 tion ( 1770), and An Appeal to the Justice and Inter- 
 ests of the People of Great Britain; and Henry Lee, 
 "Light-Horse Harry," whose funeral oration on 
 Washington contains the memorable phrase, "First 
 in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
 countrymen." 
 
 These men are, of course, not among the great 
 writers of the world. Only a few of them hold 
 rank among the greatest writers in American Litera- 
 ture. As statesmen, as generals, many of them do 
 possess great fame; but their path lay in the world 
 of action and not in the world of letters. Yet, their 
 effect on American Literature must not be lost sight 
 of; for through them the writings of the New World 
 gained a certain tone of patriotism, a self-pride, and 
 a trend of thought observable even yet, — in short, a 
 distinct idea of an American Literature for Ameri- 
 can readers. These early writers had been writing 
 
106 William Wirt 
 
 so many years for Americans, and Americans had 
 been reading the words of their own writers so long 
 that, when less turbulent times came, all found 
 American Literature to have become, unawares, an 
 established fact. 
 
 XV 
 
 It has been mentioned that this Revolutionary 
 period was not an era of poetry. The grandest 
 poetry of those dark days was written in blood on 
 the snowy fields of Valley Forge. It was a time of 
 noble lives, not of noble verses. Little time there 
 was indeed for the delicately artistic ; for men were 
 struggling for mere freedom. But on every occa- 
 sion of war, it is natural for songs to spring forth, 
 embodying the emotions of the masses and arousing 
 the fevered enthusiasm to an even higher pitch ; and 
 so it was at this time. They are not dainty little 
 ditties, but rough, spirited ballads such as soldiers 
 might roar forth around the evening camp-fire. 
 They all possess something of the spirit of that one 
 entitled Independence (1776), which contains this 
 challenge : 
 
 "Freeman ! if you pant for glory, 
 If you sigh to live in story, 
 
 If you burn with patriot zeal. 
 Seize this bright, auspicious hour; 
 Chase those venal tools of povirer, 
 
 Who subvert the public weal." 
 
 A very few rather noble songs were born in those 
 days of battle and carnage; for instance, the manly 
 American Soldiers' Hymn beginning: 
 
 " 'Tis God that girds our armor on, 
 And all our just designs fulfills; 
 Through Him our feet can swiftly run, 
 And nimbly climb the steepest hills.'' 
 
Revolutionary Songs io7 
 
 But few, if any, of this kind were written in the 
 South ; religious tendencies were not so deep-rooted 
 in the section. Better known to these people was 
 the Carolina song, Battle of King's Mountain 
 (1781), with its jerky rhythm and air of bravado: 
 
 " 'Twas on a pleasant mountain 
 
 The Tory heathens lay, — 
 With a doughty major at their head. 
 
 One Ferguson, they say. 
 Cornwallis had detached him, 
 
 A-thieving for to go, 
 And catch the Carolina men. 
 
 Or bring the rebels low." 
 
 In 1766 the repeal of the Stamp Act brought joy to 
 many a well-wisher for England in Virginia and 
 the Carolinas ; for in those colonies the love for the 
 mother country was strong, and revolution meant 
 the breaking of very strong ties. But as time passed, 
 the continued oppression cast a cloud of gloom over 
 the South as well as the North, and there came from 
 the Southern section, as a result, a somewhat rude 
 but sincere lyric of war. It was called Virginia 
 
 Hearts of Oak, modeled, of course, 
 
 Revolu- after Garrick's famous Hearts of Oak 
 
 tionary — and in its strong appeal to love of 
 
 Songs freedom and to patriotism, it was not 
 
 without effect. 
 
 "Sure never was picture drawn more to the life, 
 Or affectionate husband more fond of his wife. 
 Than America copies and loves Britain's sons, 
 Who, conscious of freedom, are bold as great guns. 
 
 "Hearts of oak are we still. 
 For we're sons of those men 
 Who always are ready — 
 Steady, boys, steady — 
 To fight for their freedom again and again. 
 
108 Revolutionary Songs 
 
 "To King George, as true subjects, we loyal bow down, 
 But hope we may call Magna Charta our own : 
 Let the rest of the world slavish worship decree. 
 Great Britain has ordered her sons to be Free. 
 "Hearts of oak, etc. 
 
 "With Loyalty, Liberty let us entwine. 
 Our blood shall for both flow as free as our wine ; 
 Let us set an example what all men should be, 
 And a toast give the world, — Here's to those who'd be Free. 
 "Hearts of oak, etc." 
 
 A number of specimens might be given. Hew- 
 LiNGS^ a Virginian, wrote in 1775 The American 
 Hearts of Oak; Rednap Howell, a North Carolina 
 schoolmaster, composed several patriotic songs, the 
 patriotism of which is their only redeeming feature; 
 and one Virginia woman even went so far as to write 
 a poem on tea — "pernicious, baleful Tea," 
 
 "With all Pandora's ills possessed; 
 Hyson, no more beguiled by thee. 
 My noble sons shall be oppressed." 
 
 James McClurg, a Virginia physician and a class- 
 mate of Jefferson's, wrote several Revolutionary 
 songs and one very popular poem. The Belles of 
 Williamsburg (1777). His best effort along the 
 line of writing, however, was his prosaic Essay on 
 the Human Bile, a work that was translated into 
 many languages and highly praised by European 
 scholars. Surely the truth was spoken of old when 
 it was said, "Every man is eloquent in that which 
 he understands." 
 
Charles Henry Wharton 109 
 
 XVI 
 
 At least thr?e Southern writers of verse in this 
 period possessed talent. They were Charles 
 Henry Wharton and Hugh Henry 
 Charles Brackenridge, both of Maryland, 
 
 Henry and St. George Tucker, of Vir- 
 
 Wharton ginia. There is some real poetry 
 — in Wharton's Poetical Epistle to 
 
 (1748> ) George Washington, and, coming, as 
 it did, just at the time when the great 
 leader was fighting enemies both abroad and at home, 
 it calls for a double share of admiration. Its author 
 was born at Notley Hall, Maryland, in 1748, and, 
 having gone to the Old Country at an early age, he 
 attended the Jesuit college at St. Omers. When the 
 Jesuits were driven from France, he followed the 
 college to Bruges, and later studied at the Jesuit 
 school at Leige, where he received priest's orders. 
 In 1773 he became professor of Mathematics there, 
 but soon gave up the position to serve his church in 
 England.- And there, as he watched the momentous 
 struggle, he ever looked with admiration upon one 
 figure — Washington; the true nobility of the calm 
 leader thrilled him. Then it was, in 1778, that he 
 wrote his Epistle. The poem was first published 
 in America, but in 1780, it appeared in London 
 under the special sanction of the Duchess of Devon- 
 shire, and, although it was expressly stated that the 
 proceeds were to go to American prisoners, fifteen 
 thousand copies were sold in three weeks. It was a 
 remarkable evidence of the unpopularity of the war. 
 
 Perhaps the best words to use in describing the 
 character of the poem are "strong" and "manly." 
 There is no "gush" in it ; only plain, precise praise 
 and absolute confidence in Washington. At all 
 times the predominant note is Virtue in Man and in 
 
110 Hugh Henry Brackenridge 
 
 State. The final words, a eulogy on Washington, 
 are worthy of more fame : 
 
 "Great without pomp, without ambition brave, 
 Proud not to conquer fellowmen, but save; 
 Friend to the wretched, foe to none but those 
 Who plan their greatness on their brethren's woes ; 
 Awed by no titles, faithless to no trust, 
 Free without faction, obstinately just; 
 Too rough for flattery, dreading e'en as death 
 The baneful influence of corruption's breath; 
 Warmed by Religion's sacred genuine ray 
 That points to future bliss the unerring way ; 
 
 Such be my country : — what her sons should be, 
 O, may they learn, great Washington, from thee !" 
 
 It was a bold, virile voice, heard when most needed, 
 and today it stands as a strong testimonial to the 
 purity, wholesomeness, and general influence of 
 Washington's character. For contemporaries are 
 generally blind to living genius, and just praise often 
 comes only with the decay of the tombstone. But 
 here, within three years after the hero had come into 
 the notice of the world, while jealousy and deceit 
 were everywhere busy, we find a fellow-countryman 
 able to cast aside the misconceptions that so com- 
 monly gather about a living man, and showing him 
 in the same beautiful light that all the succeeding 
 years have so gladly shed about him. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Brackenridge was a writer of no mean merit, 
 
 and in a less troublesome time, when there would 
 
 have been more leisure for literature 
 
 Hugh Henry of the higher sort, the world might 
 
 Bracken- have heard from him. His versatility 
 
 ridge was equaled only by his immense 
 
 — energy and determination. He was a 
 
 (1748=1816) native of Scotland, and from early 
 
 boyhood he showed the Scotchman's 
 
 obstinate perseverance in overcoming the many 
 
Hugh Henry Brackenridge m 
 
 difficulties of his life. When the family came to 
 America in 1753, they were so poor that the father 
 had to sell his coat to get food and transportation 
 part of the way to a backwoods settlement in York 
 courity, Pennsylvania. But the greater portion of 
 the journey was made on foot. 
 
 The boy showed a yearning for knowledge and 
 often walked thirty miles to obtain a book. Having 
 obtained a knowledge of Latin and Greek from a 
 clergyman, he, in turn, taught a friend those 
 languages in exchange for lessons in mathematics, 
 and thus he at length gained knowledge enough to 
 become teacher of a country school. Some of his 
 first work along this line was done at Gunpowder 
 Falls, Maryland, where he is said to have settled the 
 matter of discipline by thrashing a giant of a fellow 
 with a burning club seized from the fire. After 
 teaching for several years Brackenridge went to 
 Princeton, and, it seems, worked his way through 
 as a "general utility man." Among his classmates 
 were Madison and Freneau. He graduated in 177 1, 
 taught in the college for a time, obtained license to 
 preach, went back to Maryland, and became both 
 teacher and clergyman. It was while engaged in 
 such work that he became fired with enthusiasm over 
 the bravery of the American soldiers and wrote for 
 his pupils the drama. Battle of Bunker Hill (1776). 
 
 But the strain was too great for him to remain at 
 the country academy; and, consequently, in the 
 spring of 1777 his tall, commanding form appeared 
 before Washington's headquarters. He possessed a 
 great, full voice and was a natural orator ; and when 
 he preached his fiery "gunpowder" sermons, he 
 roused the flagging spirit of many a weary patriot. 
 That same year he published his second dramatic 
 poem, entitled The Death of General Montgomery, 
 
112 Hugh Henry Brackenridge 
 
 and in 1778 the best of his war sermons in Six 
 Political Discourses, Founded on the Scripture. It 
 may easily be surmised that these discourses have 
 much the flavor of the Vindictive Psalms; for 
 throughout the wild, fierce sentences rings the one 
 revengeful cry, "Woe unto them !" "Let every class 
 of men join to execrate the tyrant, and the tyranny, 
 and to rank the George of England with the Cains 
 and the murderers of mankind. Let fathers teach 
 their sons the degenerate nature, and the name of 
 Englishmen — let mothers still with this the children 
 on the breast, and make the name a bugbear. . . . 
 Let the aged father send his son to battle with cheer- 
 fulness and resignation. Let the wife permit her 
 husband, and perplex him not with womanish 
 exclamations, or with tears. . . . Let every 
 man become a soldier. . . . Let him be of the 
 mind to fight from hill to hill, from vale to vale, and 
 on every plain, until the enemy is driven back, and 
 forced to depart, — until the tyrant shall give up his 
 claim, and be obliged to confess that free men, that 
 Americans, are not to be subdued." 
 
 His two dramatic poems hold strictly to the classic 
 ideas of time, place, and action, and compose good 
 reading but poor acting — just as their author 
 intended, it may be added. His object was not to 
 write works of great histrionic possibilities, but 
 simply to inspire Americans with greater confidence 
 by showing them their true fighting ability, by 
 impressing the thought that he who battles in a good 
 cause is doubly armed, and by putting the true 
 nobility of that cause in a clearer light. And though 
 much of these two poems is bombastic and unnatural, 
 some parts seem to be the results of honest emotion 
 and therefore impress us with their worth. Thus, 
 when the brave Warren receives his death wound, he 
 falls upon his knees and utters these last words ; 
 
Hugh Henry Brackenridge 113 
 
 "By the last parting breath 
 And blood of this your fellow soldier slain, 
 Be now adjured never to yield the right, — 
 The grand deposit of all giving Heaven 
 To man's free nature, that he rules himself ! 
 
 Weep not for him who first espoused the cause, 
 
 And risking life, hath met the enemy 
 
 In fatal opposition — ^but rejoice: 
 
 For now I go to mingle with the dead, — 
 
 Great Brutus, Hampden, Sidney, and the rest. 
 
 Of old or modern memory, who lived 
 
 A mound to tyrants, and strong hedge to kings. 
 
 Bounding the inundation of their rage 
 
 Against the happiness and peace of Man. 
 
 I see these heroes where they walk serene, 
 By crystal currents, on the vale of Heaven, 
 High in full converse of immortal acts 
 Achieved for truth and innocence on earth. 
 
 Illustrious group ! They beckon me along, 
 To ray my visage with immortal light. 
 And bind the amaranth around my brow. 
 I come, I come, ye first-born of true fame- 
 Fight on, my countrymen, be free, be free." 
 
 In The Death of General Montgomery Bracken- 
 ridge strives to arouse intense hatred toward the 
 British. He spares no words in portraying them as 
 selfish, cruel, and beastly in nature; they are, as he 
 sees them, the acme of all that is bad. The closing 
 words of the poem can give some idea of the spirit : 
 
 "Sad thought of cruelty and outrage dire : 
 Not to be paralleled 'mongst human kind, 
 Save in the tales of flesh-devouring men. 
 The one-eyed Cyclops and fierce Cannibal. 
 For what we hear of Saracen or Turk, 
 Mogul or Tartar of Siberia, 
 Is far behind the deed of infamy 
 And horror mixed which Britons meditate. 
 
 And at the Last Day, when the Pit receives 
 Her gloomy brood, and seen among the rest. 
 Some spirit distinguished by ampler swell 
 Of malice, envy, and soul-griping hate. 
 Pointing to him, the foul and ugly ghosts 
 Of hell shall say — 'That was an Englishman.' " 
 
114 Hugh Henry Brackenridge 
 
 It may be surprising to learn that the man who 
 could write in this strain afterwards made up a long, 
 rambling, humorous story about a red-headed Irish- 
 man. In the course of time Brackenridge went to 
 Pennsylvania, founded the United States Magazine, 
 studied law, and became judge of the Supreme Court 
 of that State. It was in 1796 that he published the 
 first part of Modern Chivalry; or the Adventures of 
 Captain Farrago and Teague O'Regan, His Servant. 
 And after the American world had had a ten-years' 
 laugh over it, he brought out a second part. The 
 book is an extravagant satire, warning its readers 
 against too much democracy. The hero, Teague 
 O'Regan, gets all kinds of political offices, not 
 because of any extraordinary ability or training, but 
 simply because he is popular with the masses. How- 
 ever, this very dependence on the fickle favor of the 
 crowd at length proves the demagogue's destruction ; 
 for when he is appointed excise-man, they tar and 
 feather the poor Irishman, giving him "the appear- 
 ance of a wild fowl of the forest." 
 
 In this preacher, teacher, soldier, lawyer, politician, 
 judge, poet, and humorist, we have one of the first of 
 the writers of the new America to write with some 
 ambition toward high excellence of diction. He was 
 often wrapped up in a cause — his dramas show this — 
 but at the same time he strove to express himself 
 artistically and to do more than simply speak the 
 idea. Perhaps, in another period, no great move- 
 ment might have aroused him ; but in a less stormy 
 era his undoubted ability might have brought forth 
 a higher product of literature. 
 
St. George Tucker 115 
 
 XVIII 
 
 The last of the three poets, St. George Tucker, 
 was born in the Bermudas, but early removed to 
 Virginia. He studied law, became a 
 St. George most brilliant jurist, and was chosen 
 Tucker professor of Law at William and 
 
 — Mary College. His life was a singu- 
 
 (1752=1828) larly busy and noble one; while his 
 broad and kind nature, so well shown 
 in his treatment of his step-son, John Randolph, 
 attracted all who met him. He possessed literary 
 taste of a high order, and his efforts in verse show 
 it ; for although, according to absolute standards, he 
 wrote nothing great, there are always in his work a 
 gracefulness and a purity of sentiment, delightful to 
 this day. His writings compose no small quantity, 
 among them being Fugitive Stanzas, Probationary 
 Odes of Jonathan Pindar, Esq., Commentary on the 
 Constitution, Dissertation on Slavery, and some 
 unpublished dramas. By far the best known of his 
 efforts is Resignation, or Days of My Youth: 
 
 "Days of my youth, 
 
 Ye have glided away; 
 Hairs of my youth, 
 
 Ye are frosted and gray ; 
 Eyes of my youth, 
 
 Your keen sight is no more ; 
 Cheeks of my youth, 
 
 Ye are furrowed all o'er ; 
 Strength of my youth. 
 
 All your vigor is gone; 
 Thoughts of my youth. 
 
 Your gay visions are flown. 
 
 "Days of my age, 
 
 Ye will shortly be past; 
 Pains of my age. 
 Yet awhile ye can last; 
 
116 St. George Tucker 
 
 Joys of my age, 
 
 In true wisdom delight ; 
 Eyes of my age, 
 
 Be religion your light ; 
 Thoughts of my age. 
 
 Dread ye not the cold sod ; 
 Hopes of my age, 
 
 Be ye fixed on your God." 
 
 With these lines we may close the Revolutionary 
 period of Southern Literature. It is a significant 
 epoch in many ways ; not in its literary productions ; 
 for, excepting the Declaration of Independence and 
 The Federalist, they were not world-famous ones ; but 
 in its awakening power, its thorough arousing of the 
 intellectual and moral nature of the people, and its 
 persistent calling upon its writers for aid in the great 
 struggle. With the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century there had come what America, and especially 
 the South, had not known before — a public hunger- 
 ing for reading matter. True, the hunger was too 
 frequently satisfied by the newspaper; but, at the 
 same time, the great majority of American citizens 
 had become more or less persistent readers. The 
 Revolution unconsciously brought, with its political 
 freedom, an intellectual freedom as well. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 
 
 (1810-1850) 
 
 It has long been the mistaken sentiment among 
 the romantically inclined that materialism and 
 literature were, are, and ever more shall be mortal 
 enemies, — that commercialism, national accumula- 
 tion of wealth, and the spirit of intense productive 
 activity sound the death-note of nobility in letters. 
 The woeful prophecy has ever been : Where Dives 
 feasts, Literature famishes. How mistaken the idea ! 
 The history of every nation proves the fallacy of the 
 argument. Chaucer came when England was in the 
 midst of a great commercial awakening ; Shakespeare 
 lived in an age when the wealth of the world was 
 pouring into Great Britain; Byron, Shelley, Keats, 
 Tennyson, Browning besran their wonderful work 
 when discoveries in science and inventions of 
 machinery were laughing to scorn the old concep- 
 tions of wealth. 
 
 Such indeed, in a smaller way, was the literary 
 history of the South in the period now before us. 
 With the settlement of the Revolution there came a 
 great confidence into the soul of every American, and 
 for decade after decade a marvelous march of 
 progress went on in America. The treasures of the 
 mine were revealed; the forests of the mountain 
 became the forests of the sea; grain and tobacco 
 became gold in foreign ports ; and the only need in 
 all the land was the need of more laborers. And the 
 
118 The Period of Expansion 
 
 South, sharing to some degree in this general, 
 national movement, underwent a special transforma- 
 tion of its own. Strange as the fact may seem today, 
 cotton was unknown as a staple crop until near the 
 close of the eighteenth century. The farmer in the 
 back country devoted his time to the raising of wheat, 
 corn, hemp, and tobacco, and left the growing of the 
 small amount of cotton to those planters whose 
 wealth allowed such luxurious use of soil and labor. 
 Because of the great difficulty of separating the lint 
 from the seed and otherwise preparing the product 
 for market, the raising of cotton inclined somewhat 
 toward our modern idea of "fancy gardening." But 
 in 1793 a great change occurred, and, now, let the 
 over-romantic note it ; for through it nearly all that 
 is worthy in Southern Literature gained existence. 
 In that year Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin, 
 and the whole economic system of the South was 
 revolutionized. Planters rapidly moved into the 
 interior, carrying their slaves with them, and there, 
 in the Piedmont region beyond the pine barrens, 
 established a new but modified Virginia. Many, 
 giving up the culture of tobacco, drifted to the South- 
 east and cleared away the wilderness of Alabama, 
 Georgia, and Louisiana. 
 
 What were the sociological results of this far- 
 reaching movement? The early settlers of this 
 interior region had established a rough backwoods 
 civilization, primitive indeed, but exceedingly effec- 
 tive for such conditions ; and into this strange com- 
 munity came the Cavalier type of Eastern planters. 
 The characters of both were affected, and the 
 direct result was the development of that positive, 
 aggressive, and reckless society which we shall find 
 described so often in the literature of this period. 
 Virginia began, also, to lose much of her old-time 
 prestige; creative energy passed into the lower 
 
The Period of Expansion 119 
 
 South; and poHtical domination transferred itself 
 largely to the Cotton Belt. In 181 1 a new group 
 of men from the South entered the halls of Congress 
 and new names were on every one's lips, — the names 
 of Calhoun, Cheves, and Lowndes of South Carolina, 
 Crawford and Troup of Georgia, and Henry Clay of 
 Kentucky. The South no longer consisted merely 
 of Virginia and the CaroHnas. 
 
 Is not Literature the voice of History ? What the 
 one utters must come from the living soul of the 
 other. Therefore, we shall find no more that the only 
 literary efforts of the South are coming from the 
 narrow coast section; but, far to the contrary, we 
 shall hear expressions of thought and emotion from 
 the Potomac to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the 
 Mississippi. It is doubtful even whether the best in 
 poetry is in this period to come from the Old 
 Dominion, and it is certain that the best in oratory 
 and in fiction shall not. 
 
 The first white people of this interior country may 
 have been rough; but wealth and culture came to 
 them quickly. Private schools — ^poor indeed, yet 
 heralds of better things — sprang up among them, 
 and at length among the land-owning classes ignor- 
 ance became a disgrace. These schools were, of a 
 truth, strange institutions. Judge Longstreet has 
 given us a picture of a typical one, something as 
 follows : The houses were little log huts, with 
 chimneys built of sticks chinked with mud. The 
 whole formed a street shaded by majestic oaks and 
 composed entirely of log huts varying in size from 
 six to sixteen feet square. The street was about 
 forty yards wide and the houses ten or twelve, 
 ranged on the sides, either built by the students them- 
 selves or rented by them. The common price was 
 five dollars for a house "on front row," water-proof 
 and easily chinked. In the suburbs were several 
 
120 The Period of Expansion 
 
 other buildings of the same kind erected by literary 
 recluses who could not endure the din of the city at 
 play-time. At the head of the street stood the 
 academy, differing- in nothing from the other build- 
 ings but in size and the number of its rooms. There 
 were two rooms, one for the primary pupils, while 
 the larger was the recitation room of Dr. Waddell 
 himself, the prayer-room, court-room, and general 
 convocation-room for all matters concerning the 
 school. It was without seats and just large enough 
 to contain one hundred and fifty boys standing erect, 
 close-pressed, and leave a circle of six by ten at the 
 door for jigs and cotillions at the teacher's regular 
 service every Monday. 
 
 In connection with the above picture may be placed 
 the description given by the Southern historian. Dr. 
 Ramsay. Here, he says, in this sylvan retreat 
 gathered students from all parts of this State and 
 the adjoining ones, and the wild woods of the 
 Savannah resounded with the echoes of Homer and 
 Virgil, Cicero and Horace. Under the wide-spread- 
 ing branches in summer and in their huts in winter, 
 the students diligently studied, changing their occu- 
 pations at the sound of the horn, and repairing to 
 the house for recitation when called for by the name 
 of "the Virgil class," "the Homer class," or "the 
 Euclid class." In a moment they appeared before 
 their preceptor, and with order and decorum recited 
 their lessons, were critically examined in grammar 
 and syntax, the construction of sentences, the for- 
 mation of verbs, the antiquities of Greece and of 
 Rome, the history and geography of the Ancients, 
 illustrative of the author whose works they recite, 
 and were taught to relish his beauties and enter into 
 his spirit. Thus class succeeded class without the 
 formality of definite hours. 
 
The Period of Expansion 121 
 
 It was a strange form of education, — one which 
 the more enlightened pedagogy of later days might 
 utterly condemn; and yet from this unparalleled 
 mingling of classicism and wildest nature there 
 resulted many of the greatest statesmen and not a 
 few of the greatest leaders in modern history. 
 America has ever condensed a century of the world's 
 growth into a decade of her own, and this is but 
 another instance of the fact. 
 
 As yet the still prevailing ambition was state- 
 craft. To be an orator and a law-maker was the 
 goal of almost every young man's ambition. Well 
 might the whole South echo the sentiment of Alexis 
 de Tocqueville when he wrote: "I can conceive 
 nothing more admirable or more powerful than a 
 great orator debating great questions of state in a 
 
 democratic assembly As precedents have 
 
 there but little weight, — as there are no longer any 
 privileges attached to certain property, nor any 
 rights inherent in certain individuals, — ^the mind 
 must have recourse to general truths derived from 
 human nature to resolve the particular question 
 under discussion. Hence the political debates of a 
 democratic people, however small it may be, have a 
 degree of breadth which frequently renders them 
 attractive to mankind. All men are interested by 
 them, because they treat of man, who is everywhere 
 the same." This, moreover, was the period when 
 the question arose whether under the form of a 
 republican government man could hold his fellow- 
 man in bondage, and, though small and seemingly 
 without danger in the early part of the era, the fire 
 of passion had been fanned by the close of the period 
 into an all-consuming flame. There was, indeed, 
 need of statesmen, and those of the highest rank. 
 
 Yet, amid such conditions we see the first vigor- 
 ous signs of pure literature. Essays on literary and 
 
122 The Period of Expansibn 
 
 art subjects became more frequent; poetry of no 
 mean order was written; and, for the first time in 
 the history of Southern Literature, fiction showed 
 important developments. Again, a most hopeful 
 sign was the effort to found literary magazines. 
 Between the years 1811 and i860 we find Miles' 
 Register in Baltimore; The Southern Review, The 
 Southern Literary Quarterly, The Southern Quar- 
 terly, The Southern and Western Magazine, and 
 Russell's Magazine in Charleston, DeBotx/s Review 
 in New Orleans, and The Southern Literary Mes- 
 senger in Richmond. Every newspaper, too, had 
 its "Poets' Corner" and some of the gems of South- 
 ern verse were given to the public through this 
 source. 
 
 It was, in fact, a most sanguine time for litera- 
 ture, not only in the South, but in the North as well. 
 Abroad Wordsworth was declaring a new reverence 
 for Nature ; Shelley was dreaming of wider liberty ; 
 and Byron was showing the genius of his fiery soul. 
 By the beginning of the period Irving had become 
 the leader of the New York school of writers; in 
 1837 Emerson had delivered his marvelous address. 
 The American Scholar, and by the close of the period 
 Hawthorne, Cooper, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, 
 and a host of others were known to the world. The 
 South had few names to compare with these ; but it 
 did have a number of writers who, with their minor 
 genius, were sincerely characteristic of their section 
 in sentiment, passion, and tradition. 
 
 We shall find, then, in the Southern Literature 
 of this period the same eloquence that has always 
 characterized the statesman from these States; an 
 outburst of song, real, lyric song, not deep, not 
 didactic, but indeed lyrical; a similar outburst of 
 fiction; and, what should be considered as most 
 natural — for before the war the South was a land 
 
Orators, Essayists, and Historians 123 
 
 of fun-lovers — the coming of the humorist. It was 
 the beginning of a possible great literature, — a litera- 
 ture, however, that, under the weight of the long- 
 continued sectional controversy and civil war that 
 followed, was crushed into a very different form. 
 
 OratorSj Essayists^ and Historians. 
 
 I 
 
 In the ante-bellum days of Southern history every 
 leader was expected and almost compelled to be a 
 public speaker. The county court-house resounded 
 not infrequently with bombastic harangues, but more 
 often with eloquence of a very high order. Every 
 cross-road had its debating club, while in many of 
 the so-called colleges the students learned more of 
 permanent value through their preparation for the 
 "literary society" than in all the class-work put 
 together. It was but natural that the Southern states- 
 man of the day should, through his power of publicly 
 expressing thought, gain the admiration of all 
 Americans. This phase of Southern Literature, so 
 characteristic of the section, we shall examine first. 
 
 Passing over a small host of such legislators and 
 political leaders as William Pinkney (1764- 
 1822), who zealously strove to prove that slavery 
 and a republican form of government are not incon- 
 gruous; Robert Walsh (1784- 1859), who wrote 
 some well-worded essays; Sam Houston (1793- 
 1863), the father of Texas; and William Camp- 
 bell Preston (1794- 1860), the statesman and 
 educator, we come to that group of master-minds 
 whose importance is not sectional but national. A 
 truly wonderful list of names is this — ^John Ran- 
 dolph (1773-1833), Henry Clay (1777-1852), 
 
124 John Randolph 
 
 John C. Calhoun (1782-1850), Thomas Hart 
 Benton (1782-1858), and Robert Young Hayne 
 (1791-1839). 
 
 Randolph, a descendant of Pocahontas, as he 
 often boasted, was born at Cawsons, Virginia. 
 Under the care of his stepfather, St. 
 John George Tucker, he was trained so 
 
 Randolph kindly yet so thoroughly that through- 
 — out his entire life he held in grateful 
 
 (1773=1833) memory the name of this foster- 
 parent. Having been a student at 
 William and Mary, Princeton, and Columbia, he 
 received the best in scholastic education that America 
 could ofifer; and, yet, he was never quite prepared 
 for life. In temperament he was often bitter and 
 intolerant. He was radical in religion and politics, 
 was doubtful of all forms of government and put 
 his trust in no power. Opposed to the Constitution, 
 he could not bear to hear Washington take the oath 
 of office. His eccentricities, startling even to his 
 most intimate friends, became in his last years so 
 prominent that his sanity was doubted, and in a con- 
 test over his will the court actually declared him 
 insane. 
 
 Be that as it may, the thirty years of his congres- 
 sional life constituted a period of memorable service 
 to his country. He was a sturdy friend of justice 
 and boldly spoke out against prejudice toward 
 either individual or nation, even toward the old 
 enemy, England. "With chiefs of banditti, negro 
 or mulatto, we can treat and trade. Name, however, 
 but England and all our antipathies are up in arms 
 against her. Against whom ? Against those whose 
 blood runs in our veins ; in common with whom we 
 claim Shakespeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for 
 our countrymen; whose form of government is the 
 freest on earth, our own only excepted ; from whom 
 
John Randolph ]25 
 
 every valuable principle of our own institutions has 
 been borrowed. ... I acknowledge the influ- 
 ence of a Shakespeare and a Milton upon my imagi- 
 nation, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a 
 Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chatham 
 upon qualities which, would to God I possessed in 
 common with that illustrious man ; of a Tillotson, a 
 Sherlock, and a Porteus upon my religion. This is 
 a British influence which I can never shake off." 
 
 Although thus a broad man in many ways, he 
 lacked the essential calmness of a great statesman. 
 He was "an unparalleled master of invective," and 
 with his reckless sarcasm, his eloquence, sometimes 
 bombastic, but oftener accurate and telling, and his 
 almost ungovernable temper, he was a power to be 
 reckoned with. He denounced Jefferson and Madi- 
 son, introduced the resolution for the impeachment 
 of Justice Samuel Chase, and fought a duel with 
 Clay. He was tall and thin, and when he arose in 
 the halls of Congress and shook his long, skinny 
 finger at his opponents and lifted his shrill, piping 
 voice in bitter taunts, he became a terror to his 
 enemies. And his enemies were not few. His lan- 
 guage, "as direct as the arrow from the Indian bow," 
 spoke its meaning in unmistakable terms; and, 
 naturally, bitter animosity was the inevitable result. 
 His style was clear, rapid, original, like the man, and 
 it never dodged the question. This absolute fear- 
 lessness is best shown in his stand on the subject of 
 slavery. Representing a slave State, and a slave- 
 owner himself, he hated the institution with all his 
 heart; and when the Tei-ritory of Indiana presented 
 a memorial begging that slavery be permitted in that 
 section, he opposed the movement with startling 
 vehemence. At his death he freed his own slaves 
 and provided for the maintenance of each one. Well 
 has he been called "a singular mixture of the aristo- 
 crat and the Jacobin." 
 
126 Henry Clay 
 
 Yet, this strange man was undoubtedly sincere. 
 Read but a few pages of his Letters to a Young Relch 
 tive (1834), and such a behef is forced upon the 
 mind. Are not the following words revelations of 
 an earnest, simple-hearted man? 
 
 "This independence is but a name. Place us 
 where you will — along with our rights there must 
 coexist correlative duties ; and the more exalted the 
 station the more arduous are these last. Indeed, as 
 the duty is precisely correspondent to the power, it 
 follows that the richer, the wiser, the more powerful 
 a man is, the greater is the obligation upon him to 
 employ his gifts in lessening the sum of human 
 misery; and this employment constitutes happiness 
 which the weak and wicked vainly imagine to consist 
 in wealth, finery, or sensual gratification." 
 
 John Randolph of Roanoke — the name will ever 
 remain as the synonym of eccentricity, bitterness, 
 passion, and sincerity. 
 
 II 
 
 Once in many years there comes to men a leader 
 so great, so pure in his very nature as to emerge 
 
 wholly from the scurrilousi intrigues 
 
 Henry Clay of party and faction and stand as a 
 
 — patriot of the highest order. Such a 
 
 (1777-1852) man among the ancients was Cicero, 
 
 among the medisevals Peter the Great, 
 among the moderns Washington. To such an order, 
 also, belongs "the great Pacificator," Henry Clay. 
 He was not the profoundest statesman in the history 
 of America, but he was by far the most popular, the 
 most influential, and the most disinterested of his 
 day. His real love for the nation as a whole — a 
 feeling too infrequent among Southern statesmen 
 of that time — cannot be doubted. "I know no 
 
Henry Clay 127 
 
 North, no South, no East, no West" was one of the 
 most whole-souled utterances of that bitter period, 
 and especially so, since Clay knew that through such 
 an expression his popularity gained nothing in the 
 section which he represented. 
 
 And yet this man was of the South and an ardent 
 lover of it. He was born in Hanover county near 
 Richmond, Virginia. His father, a Baptist minister, 
 having died when Henry was but four years old, the 
 boy spent much of his childhood in poverty. But 
 his mother at length married again, and his step- 
 father secured for him a clerkship in the High Court 
 of Chancery, in which position his work was of such 
 high excellence that he was advised to study law. 
 He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty, and, 
 following the westward movement, went to Lexing- 
 ton, Kentucky, to practise. Almost immediate suc- 
 cess was his, and by the year 1800 he was recognized 
 as one of the foremost lawyers in the State. In 1 799 
 he took an active part in the revision of the State 
 Constitution, daring upon that occasion to advocate 
 the gradual abolition of slavery. Seven years later, 
 while filling an unexpired term in the United States 
 Senate, he gave that body a foretaste of the won- 
 derful eloquence, the tact, and the earnest sincerity 
 which were in time to make the nation turn to him 
 for guidance. 
 
 Immediately after the close of this term he became 
 speaker of the Kentucky legislature. His resolution 
 then introduced, advocating that no member should 
 wear foreign-made clothing, was branded by Hum- 
 phrey Marshall as demagogy; and a duel followed. 
 In 1809 he again went to the United States Senate; 
 three years later, in the United States Congress, he 
 forced the war of 1812, thus gaining for himself the 
 name of "War Hawk," and at the close of the con- 
 flict he was sent to Ghent to arrange a treaty, and 
 
128 Henry Clay 
 
 there showed himself a greater diplomat than any 
 other official present. In 1824 he was a candidate 
 for the Presidency; but upon the election of Adams 
 he became Secretary of State — an occurrence which 
 John Randolph called "a coalition of the Puritan and 
 the blackleg." Another duel followed. In 1844 he 
 was again the Whig candidate for the Presidency, 
 was again defeated, and returned to that place where 
 he was so greatly needed — the Senate. 
 
 During all those years he labored for one great 
 object, and that was peace at home. As the author 
 of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Tariff 
 Compromise of 1832, the Bill for Protection and 
 Internal Improvement, and the Missouri Compro- 
 mise of 1850, he strove zealously but vainly to thrust 
 back the inevitable conflict. In that mighty effort 
 personal interests became secondary, and daily, 
 hourly, his deeds upheld the meaning of those mem- 
 orable words : "I would rather be right than be 
 President." And yet, as his eyes closed in death in 
 1852, they perhaps had never beheld before a period 
 so troubled, so lacking in hope for a peaceful future. 
 
 As a creator of oratorical literature Henry Clay 
 may well stand among the greatest in the English 
 language. A magnetism and a sincerity were his 
 that quickly mastered an audience and gave him 
 power to sway his listeners as he wished. "In him 
 intellect, person, reason, eloquence, and courage 
 united to form a character fit to command. He fired 
 with his own enthusiasm and controlled by his amaz- 
 ing will, individuals and masses." Perhaps his best 
 efforts are the Speech on the Greek Revolution 
 (1824) and the Defense of the American System 
 (1832) ; but the high qualities which pervade these 
 two are found so richly in many others of his 
 addresses, that personal taste must enter somewhat 
 into the selection of his masterpieces. In all of them 
 
Henry Clay 129 
 
 there is no appeal to prejudice; there is proof for 
 every statement. "His style of argument," John P. 
 McGuire has said, "was by vivid picture, apt com- 
 parison, and forcible illustration, rather than by close 
 reasoning like Webster's, or impregnable logic like 
 that of Calhoun." 
 
 Beyond all the brilliancy, fire, and righteousness 
 of his character was his inborn love of harmony. 
 "If there be any who want civil war, who want to see 
 the blood of any portion of our countrymen spilt, I 
 am not one of them. I wish to see war of no kind ; 
 but above all I do not desire to see a civil war. When 
 war begins, whether civil or foreign, no human sight 
 is competent to foresee when, or how, or where it is 
 to terminate. But when a civil war shall be lighted 
 up in the bosom of our own happy land, and armies 
 are marching, and commanders are winning their 
 victories, and fleets are in motion on our coast, tell 
 me, if you can, tell me, if any human being can tell, 
 its duration. God alone knows where such a war 
 would end. In what a state will our institutions be 
 left ! In what a state our liberties ! I want no war ; 
 above all, no war at home." Of such a nature was 
 this patriot-orator. At times, when greatly aroused 
 by the question under consideration, he forgot that 
 cautiousness so necessary in a great leader ; but, as a 
 whole, considering the times and the environment, 
 he displayed a marvelous reserve. Moreover, it can 
 hardly be denied that by means of his eloquent plead- 
 ing, one of the bloodiest conflicts in all history was 
 stayed for two decades. Justly indeed might he 
 claim that his was "the ambition of being the humble 
 instrument in the hands of Providence to reconcile 
 a divided people; once more to revive concord and 
 harmony in a distracted land — the pleasing ambition 
 of contemplating the glorious spectacle of a free, 
 united, prosperous, and fraternal people." 
 
130 John Caldwell Calhoun 
 
 III 
 
 Those were wonderful days in our nation's history, 
 wonderful alike in their events and in their men. 
 
 Edward Everett partly voiced the 
 John sentiment when he said, "Calhoun, 
 
 Caldwell Clay, Webster! I name them in 
 
 Calhoun alphabetical order. What other prece- 
 
 — dence can be assigned them? Clay 
 
 (1782-1850) the great leader, Webster the great 
 
 orator, Calhoun the great thinker." 
 Calhoun was born of Scotch-Irish parentage in Abbe- 
 ville county. South Carolina. His father was a 
 man of very limited means, and consequently the boy 
 had poor opportunities for gaining an education. 
 Not until he was eighteen did he begin systematic 
 study ; but at that age he was so zealously and accur- 
 ately instructed by his brother-in-law, the famous 
 Moses Waddell, that at the age of twenty he was able 
 to enter the Junior class at Yale, and to graduate with 
 high honors two years later ( 1804) . For a time he 
 studied law at Charleston, and in 1807 began to 
 practise the profession at Abbeville. He soon entered 
 the State legislature; in 181 1 he became a member 
 of Congress; and thenceforth he was ever in the 
 midst of the great struggles of the political arena. 
 
 In his earlier days he took sides with Clay and 
 seemed very much in favor of increased national 
 power — ^the very opposite of his later views. He 
 went so far as even to favor a national bank, internal 
 improvements under the charge of the national gov- 
 ernment, a protective tariff, and an enlarged navy. 
 His ability, especially in logical analysis of the sub- 
 ject under discussion, kept him prominently before 
 the public eye ; and positions of responsibility became 
 his with little or no opposition. Under Monroe he 
 became Secretary of War. It was while in this 
 
John Caldwell Calhoun 131 
 
 office that he drew up two of the most famous gov- 
 ernment reports ever constructed by an American: 
 the one on roads and canals; the other on Indian 
 affairs. In 1824 he became Vice-President and 
 again in 1826; and in both elections there was but 
 little opposition. 
 
 Now began the radical changes in the man. In 
 that year, 1826, was passed the act popularly known 
 as the "Tariff of Abominations" — a law which seem- 
 ingly meant disaster to agricultural South Carolina. 
 Then it was that Calhoun, turning aside from his 
 former views, expressed himself unmistakably in 
 favor of State sovereignty, in a widely read paper, 
 the South Carolina Exposition. At this point the 
 first quarrel with President Jackson occurred — the 
 subject of dispute being the latter' s conduct in the 
 Seminole War. The breach between the two men 
 widened, and Calhoun, seeing but little hope of 
 reconciliation, cast aside all reserve, and wrote 
 another paper (1831), calling upon the States to 
 nullify any law that they might consider unconstitu- 
 tional. During the next year the South Carolina 
 legislature nullified the tariff act, and Calhoun 
 resigned the Vice-Presidency to succeed as Senator 
 Robert Y. Hayne, who had just been elected gov- 
 ernor of South Carolina. It seemed indeed as 
 though war were at hand. But by a compromise, 
 which was really a victory for South Carolina, the 
 matter was settled. 
 
 The hatred between Calhoun and Jackson grew 
 more bitter. Calhoun, with his relentless logic and 
 analytical expositions, constantly brought the hasty 
 President's methods under criticism. But with a 
 true love for the Union, he strove to crush all dis- 
 cussion of the unsleeping monster. Slavery, and, year 
 after year, struggled to uphold State independence 
 and yet thrust back the ever-advancing war. In 
 
132 John Caldwell Calhoun 
 
 1843 he refused another term as Senator, became 
 Secretary of War under Tyler, but in 1845 was back 
 on the floor of the Senate. His presence was indeed 
 needed there. The question of slavery was raging; 
 the abolition movement in the North was advancing 
 with great strides. In 1847, as a means of retalia- 
 tion, he proposed a convention of the Southern States 
 to prevent Northern commerce in the South; in 1849, 
 seeing no hope for a peaceful Union, he proposed 
 a convention for the purpose of "dissolving the 
 partnership" ! 
 
 Then came the famous Compromise of 1850. He 
 wrote a speech upon the subject, but was too weak 
 to read it before his fellow-senators. The worn 
 gladiator was approaching death. But, filled with 
 the spirit of the struggle unto the last, he wrote in 
 his dying days two of the most remarkable political 
 documents ever created : the Disquisition on Govern- 
 ment and the Discourse on the Constitution and 
 Government of the United States. He died at 
 Washington March 31, 1850. 
 
 Great as Calhoun was in character and works, one 
 would not turn to his writings for inspiration. As 
 a speaker he was a power; but his strength was 
 intellectual and not emotional. His ability in logical 
 analysis has been mentioned; the man was logic 
 incarnate. He built about his subject a bulwark of 
 propositions and conclusions almost impregnable. 
 Daniel Webster said of his eloquence : "It was plain, 
 strong, terse, condensed, concise, sometimes impas- 
 sioned, still always severe. Rejecting ornament, not 
 often seeking far for illustration, his power consisted 
 in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness 
 of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of his 
 manner." That he could use beautiful illustrations 
 may be seen in this one extract from a speech deliv- 
 fred in his earlier days (1816) ; 
 
John Caldwell Calhoun 133 
 
 "This country is now in a situation similar to that 
 which one of the most beautiful writers of antiquity- 
 ascribes to Hercules in his youth. He represents 
 the hero as retiring into the wilderness to deliberate 
 on the course of life which he ought to choose. Two 
 goddesses approach him; one recommending a life 
 of ease and pleasure ; the other, of labor and virtue. 
 The hero adopts the counsel of the latter, and his 
 fame and glory are known to the world. May this 
 country, the youthful Hercules, possessing his form 
 and muscles, be animated by similar sentiments, and 
 follow his example !" 
 
 But such expressions are rare. In their cool, 
 passionless analysis, his speeches may have struck 
 home in his day ; but noWj on the printed page, they 
 fail to arouse. His was not a rich imagination; he 
 lacked the ability to surprise by a flash ; he fails to 
 inspire readers of today. But if you seek a calm 
 creator of subtle, almost indestructible theories, read 
 Calhoun. Notice these lines from his letter to 
 Governor Hamilton of South Carolina (1832) : 
 
 "There is no direct and immediate connection 
 between the individual citizens of a State and the 
 general government. The relation between them is 
 through the State. The Union is a union of States 
 as communities, and not a union of individuals. As 
 members of a State, her citizens were originally sub- 
 ject to no control but that of the State, and could be 
 subject to no other, except by the act of the State 
 itself. The Constitution was accordingly submitted 
 to the States for their separate ratification; and it 
 was only by the ratification of the State that its 
 citizens became subject to the control of the general 
 government. . . . Whether subject to its con- 
 trol or not, depended wholly on the act of the State. 
 . . . It follows, as a necessary consequence, that 
 the act of ratification bound the State as a com- 
 
134 John Caldwell Calhoun 
 
 munity, . . . and not the citizens of the State 
 as individuals ; the latter being bound through their 
 State, and in consequence of the ratification of the 
 former." 
 
 We have called this man a lover of the Union. 
 So he was. His idea of nullification was not the 
 same as secession. Jefferson Davis and other leaders 
 of the Southern Confederacy felt impelled to break 
 away from the doctrines of Calhoun in order to pro- 
 ceed in their radical movements. He was for a 
 Union, with diminished power, acting simply as the 
 agent of the separate States. 
 
 Cool, passionless reasoner though he was, he had 
 little opportunity in his day to do anything but 
 negative, destructive work. The times did not per- 
 mit the positive and constructive. His days were 
 spent in defensive argument, in pointing out what he 
 considered the wrongs of present-day government. 
 But in the last days that wonderful mind turned its 
 searching view directly upon the foundations and 
 developments of law, and then came the ever-famous 
 Disquisition on Government and the Discourses on 
 the Constitution and Government of the United 
 States. Dr. W. P. Trent has well said: "In the 
 course of his strenuous labors to divert the ruin he 
 saw impending, he gave to the world the most mas- 
 terly analyses of the rights of the minority and of 
 the best methods of securing them that has yet come 
 from the pen of a publicist." 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 135 
 
 IV 
 
 Near the middle of the nineteenth century a 
 famihar phrase on every voter's lips was "Old 
 
 Bullion." It was the nickname of 
 Thomas one of the most prominent and ener- 
 
 Hart getic figures then on the floor of 
 
 Benton the United States Senate — Thomas 
 
 — Hart Benton of Missouri. During 
 
 (1782-1858) the Jacksonian era there was most 
 
 bitter opposition to a United States 
 bank, and Benton, the eloquent leader of this oppo- 
 sition, declared that gold and silver alone should 
 constitute a currency ; hence the title. It was a name 
 greatly loved by Southern and Western people, a 
 synonym for energy, perseverance, and uprightness, 
 and with it all, a persuasive eloquence to be com- 
 pared only to that of his contemporaries, Clay, 
 Webster, Randolph, and Hayne. 
 
 The story of Benton's life is one applicable, with a 
 very few changes, to the life of many an American 
 leader: poverty in childhood, struggles in youth, 
 honor in maturity, and undying memory in death. 
 He was bom near Hillsborough, North Carolina; 
 but his mother took him, after the father's death, to 
 Tennessee. He attended the University of North 
 Carolina for a time, but lack of means prevented his 
 finishing the course. In Tennessee his family made 
 a settlement near Nashville, at a place known after- 
 wards as Bentontown, and there for some years he 
 led the usual life of rough toil and hardship incident 
 to frontier existence. In early manhood he studied 
 law under the guidance of St. George Tucker, and 
 began to practise in Nashville. The year 181 1 saw 
 him in the State legislature, advocating a reform in 
 the judicial system and advocating, also, the giving 
 to slaves the right of trial by jury. The next year 
 
136 Thomas Hart Benton 
 
 I « "'I ' >;- (-1 . . 
 r.',;'('S*'l'S"':,r""''.l'**<.--il ,: • ' 
 
 he was a lieutenant-colonel in the second war with 
 England. About this time, too, he met Jackson, and 
 the two men began a friendship which terminated 
 most abruptly in 1813, but which was renewed in 
 after years. After the secession agitation of the 
 Hartford Convention Benton became a pronounced 
 Union man, and henceforth he combated with char- 
 acteristic energy all that hinted of division of the 
 nation — a form of activity which did not at all 
 increase the number of his friends in the South. 
 
 In 1815 he removed to St. Louis. There he at 
 once came into prominence through his interest in 
 political affairs and through his newspaper, The 
 Missouri Inquirer; for as an editor the man spoke 
 his mind frankly, and of course, according to the 
 code of honor in that day, was compelled to defend 
 his assertions by means of duels. He strove for 
 the admission of Missouri as a slave State, and after 
 the Compromise of 1820 held the position of United 
 States senator from that community for thirty years. 
 No inducement of self or party advancement could 
 at any time influence him in his efforts for the welfare 
 of the nation. Time after time he endeavored to 
 obtain a constitutional amendment allowing the 
 people to vote directly for the President; he strove 
 for fairness in the allotment of land to home-seekers ; 
 he opposed with all his power what he considered 
 an effort to put the national currency on a deceitful 
 basis. 
 
 The man who wished to cope with Benton's con- 
 temporaries was indeed in need of all the force, 
 confidence, firmness, and stubborn perseverance of 
 a real statesman ; and such, in fact, were the qualities 
 of this man. Fluent and vigorous at all times, he 
 never failed to make a telling speech. He had the 
 gift of exposition, and this, with his caustic wit and 
 his habit of hammering at one point until gained, 
 
Thomas Hart Benton 137 
 
 made him a power in all movements that he con- 
 sidered just. But Benton deserves attention here 
 as something more than an orator ; he was a decidedly 
 interesting writer. His most important works are 
 his Thirty Years' View of the Workings of Our 
 Government, Abridgment of the Debates of Con- 
 gress, and An Examination of the Dred Scott Case. 
 Here, again, we find the same force and vigor that 
 characterized him as an orator, while, added to these 
 traits, are the ease and readiness of a writer 
 thoroughly interested in his subject. And he was 
 indeed interested in these matters. At the age of 
 seventy-six he was laboring on the Abridgment of 
 the Debates, and having toiled until he had brought 
 the fifteen volumes down to the great Compromise 
 Debate of 1850 when Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and 
 he himself were among the moving powers, he 
 dictated the last pages in whispers forced from his 
 dying body. 
 
 Perhaps his Thirty Years' Viezv is the most inter- 
 esting of his productions; for in its "succession of 
 historical tableaux" there is a wealth of personal, 
 novel description. We are surprised to see how 
 rapidly ideas change, and how the customs common 
 to the nation of one century are odd and even ridicu- 
 lous to the nation of the next century. Note, for 
 instance, a few extracts from the description of the 
 duel between Clay and Randolph: 
 
 "I withdrew a little way into the woods, and kept 
 my eyes fixed on Mr. Randolph, who I then knew 
 to be the only one in danger. I saw him receive the 
 fire of Mr. Clay, saw the gravel knocked up in the 
 same place, saw Mr. Randolph raise his pistol — dis- 
 charge it in the air ; heard him say, 'I do not fire at 
 you, Mr. Clay,' and immediately advancing and 
 offering his hand. He was met in the same spirit. 
 They met half-way, shook hands, Mr. Randolph 
 saying jocosely, 'You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay' — 
 
138 Robert Young Hayne 
 
 (the bullet had passed through the skirt of the coat, 
 very near the hip) — to which Mr. Clay promptly and 
 happily replied, 'I am glad the debt is no greater.' 
 . . . On Monday the parties exchanged cards^ 
 and social relations were formally and courteously 
 restored. It was about the last high-toned duel that 
 I have witnessed, and among the highest toned that 
 I have ever witnessed. . . . Certainly duelling 
 is bad, and has been put down, but not quite so bad 
 as its substitute — revolvers, bowie knives, black- 
 guarding, and street-assassination under the pretext 
 of self-defense." 
 
 Such was the code of honor among ante-bellum 
 leaders, not the least of whom was "Old Bullion" 
 Benton. 
 
 V 
 
 The famous Webster-Hayne debate of January, 
 1830, will ever be a stirring chapter in American 
 history. The extremely different views of the two 
 master-minds, the intense earnestness of each, the 
 thought, the logic, and the eloquence of both, the 
 aroused nation, the time, the question, the steadily 
 approaching crisis, all these move the soul of the 
 thoughtful reader of today as they did the thinkers 
 of that momentous period. The two orators were 
 eminently representative of their respective sections : 
 Webster the product of the more logical North; 
 Hayne the product of the more emotional South ; and 
 neither lacked the power of a true orator. 
 
 Robert Young Hayne was an epitome of 
 
 extremely Southern characteristics. He was born 
 
 near St. Paul's Parish, Colleton Dis- 
 
 Robert trict. South Carolina, and was edu- 
 
 Young cated at Charleston, where he also 
 
 Hayne studied law. In the War of 1812 he 
 
 — served as an ofificer; from 1814 to 
 
 (1791-1839) 1818 he was a member of the State 
 
 legislature; and during Monroe's 
 
Robert Young Hayne 139 
 
 administration he served as Attorney-General o£ the 
 United States. He entered the Senate in 1823, and 
 there his remarkable power as a persuasive leader 
 of men asserted itself with astonishing results. As 
 a strict constructionist of the Constitution, a free- 
 trader, and a states'-rights advocate, he had at the 
 very first a large following, and this, by sheer force 
 of his fiery genius, he constantly increased. He 
 denounced the anti-slavery program of the Panama 
 Congress, maintained that slavery was a domestic 
 institution and therefore was exempt from Federal 
 interference, and in the historic debates with 
 Webster, lasting from January 19 to January 27, 
 put forward most brilliant arguments to show that 
 the Federal Government was but a compact between 
 various independent States and therefore could be 
 dissolved whenever any State considered the terms 
 of agreement abused. 
 
 From 1832 to 1834 he was governor of South 
 Carolina, and the choice was for a very good reason, 
 we may well believe. For South Carolina had 
 bitterly denounced the action of the government, 
 and Hayne, as chairman of the committee appointed 
 by the Charleston Nullification Convention of 
 November 19, 1832, had reported the rousing Ordi- 
 nance of Nullification; and every South Carolinian 
 felt that this man must be their leader. On December 
 10, 1832, Jackson denounced the Nullification acts, 
 
 • but the new governor replied with a most daring 
 proclamation, and prepared for war. Congress 
 afterwards receded from its position, and the Ordi- 
 nance of Nullification was repealed. Strange to say, 
 from this time until his death in 1839, Hayne was 
 never again actively engaged in the political strug- 
 gles of the period. From time to time, however, in 
 occasional addresses, he showed that his marvelous 
 
 gifts as an orator had not deserted him. 
 
140 Robert Young Hayne 
 
 His was a fiery eloquence. He was a bold, power- 
 ful and rapid debater, and his speeches often swept 
 along with a rush that did not always permit his 
 listeners to pause for thought, but instead, carried 
 them away as willing captives. So filled with passion 
 were his words that at times he seemed almost beside 
 himself, and yet he never for a moment lost control 
 of the flood of words. It was a time when bitter 
 sectional feelings possessed nearly every man, and 
 such oratory was natural and indeed necessary. 
 Such conditions do not lead always to broadminded- 
 ness, liberalness of view, and a just conception of 
 the fraternity of men : and Hayne was not great in 
 these characteristics. But in the sincerity of his 
 heart he was for the South, first, last, and always; 
 and the South, with its mighty curse of slavery daily 
 sapping away its strength, might well need such a 
 man. 
 
 Of course, his debate with Webster was his best 
 effort. Into this controversy he poured forth the 
 accumulated thoughts and emotions of all his past 
 life, and his heart concurred in every word that his 
 lips uttered. "The people whom I represent, Mr. 
 President, are the descendants of those who brought 
 with them to this country, as the most precious of 
 their possessions, 'an ardent love of liberty'; and 
 while that shall be preserved, they will always be 
 found manfully struggling against the consolidation 
 of the Government as the worst of evils. . . . 
 The doctrine that it is the right of a State to judge 
 of the violations of the Constitution on the part of 
 the Federal Government, and to protect her citizens 
 from the operations of unconstitutional laws, was 
 held by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who 
 assembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 
 1809. They state in that celebrated memorial, that 
 they looked only to the State Legislature, which was 
 
Robert Young Hayne 141 
 
 competent to devise relief against the unconstitu- 
 tional acts of the General Government. . . . 
 Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South 
 Carolina doctrine is the Republican doctrine of '98, 
 — that it was promulgated by the fathers of the faith, 
 — that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky 
 in the worst of times, — that it constituted the very 
 pivot on which the political revolution of that day 
 turned, — that it embraces the very principles, the 
 triumph of which, at that time, saved the Constitu- 
 tion at its last gasp, and which New England states- 
 men were not unwilling to adopt when they believed 
 themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional leg- 
 islation. . . . Sir, if acting on these high 
 motives, — if animated by that ardent love of liberty, 
 which has always been the most prominent trait in 
 the Southern character, we should be hurried beyond 
 the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence ; who 
 is there, with one noble and generous sentiment in 
 his bosom, who would not be disposed, in the lan- 
 guage of Burke, to exclaim, 'You must pardon some- 
 thing to the spirit of liberty' ?" 
 
 With Hayne we must close the study of Southern 
 orators and statesmen of this period. The bloodiest 
 conflict of the nineteenth century was approaching; 
 there was need of thought, persuasion, eloquence. 
 In that noble galaxy of statesmen were many inher- 
 ently too noble to stoop to petty intrigues, too patri- 
 otic to endanger by word or by deed the tottering 
 structures of American liberty. The conceptions of 
 liberty might differ widely; but there was sincerity 
 in each view. And how extreme were the respective 
 views — Webster on the one hand, Hayne on the 
 other ! 
 
 VI 
 
 In ante-bellum days not only the statesmen of the 
 South were expected to possess consider?iWe learn- 
 
142 Robert Young Hayne 
 
 ing-; but every gentleman — and that included all 
 professional men, planters, and others who did not 
 depend upon manual labor for a livelihood — was 
 almost obliged to have some acquaintance with 
 classical learning and general culture. Especially in 
 the study of history, political economy, ethics, and 
 philosophy was there a well-sustained interest; and 
 in consequence we shall find the cotton or sugar 
 planter, the doctor, or the lawyer spending his leisure 
 moments in writing an essay, a description of some 
 journey, or even a history of his own State. Of 
 such a class were James Wilkerson (1757-1825), 
 who wrote in 1816 an historically valuable volume 
 entitled Memoirs of My Own Times; Robert Good- 
 LOE Harper (1765- 1825), the author of some well- 
 written essays on governmental affairs ; John Dray- 
 ton (1766- 1 822), who, in his description of a tour 
 through the North and East, his View of South 
 Carolina and his Memoirs of the Revolution in South 
 Carolina did much for future students of American 
 history; Archibald Alexander ( 1772-185 i), 
 who in his religious works made a most fervent 
 defense of the Christian faith; Ninian Pinkney 
 (1776- 1 825), the pleasant narrator of leisurely 
 European travels; and Hugh Swinton Legare 
 (1797- 1 843), who, while a lawyer, a statesman, and 
 a diplomat, was no less a scholar and writer on 
 literary and historical subjects. 
 
 Many indeed might be given extended attention; 
 but, alas, the day of the four-hour sermon, the three- 
 volume novel, and the history beginning with Adam 
 are things of bygone days ! Let us glance at a very 
 few of the most noted. 
 
Washington Allston 143 
 
 VII 
 
 The first is Washington Allston (1779-1843), 
 of whom Coleridge has said, "He was surpassed by- 
 no man of his age in artistic and poetic 
 Washington genius." He was born at George- 
 Allston town, South Carolina ; but, owing to 
 
 — poor health, he was sent north, and 
 
 (1779=1843) lived at Newport, Rhode Island, until 
 he entered Harvard. It was at New- 
 port that the moving ambition of his life came to 
 him; for there he met the painter, Malbone, and 
 became intensely interested in art. Fired with a new 
 desire in life, he divided his time at Harvard rather 
 unequally between studies and painting, and, as soon 
 as he had graduated, hastened to South Carolina, 
 sold part of his possessions, and sailed for Europe. 
 For a time he was a student at the Royal Academy, 
 London, and later spent several years in France and 
 Italy. He at length returned to America and mar- 
 ried, but after a few years, his wife having died, he 
 went back to England, and there, while brooding 
 over his sorrow, he wrote The Sylphs of the Seasons 
 and several other poems. Returning again to 
 America, he resided near Boston and died there in 
 1842. 
 
 Allston wrote, besides his poems, a powerful and 
 weird piece of fiction entitled Monaldi and a num- 
 ber of essays on art and literature. Despite the fact 
 that his poetry was popular in his own day and his 
 novel widely read, his best work probably is his series 
 of discourses on art. As Coleridge has said, he had 
 the true artistic temperament, and in the discussion 
 of a masterpiece or of a master, he was sincere in 
 his criticism, and intelligible and interesting to any 
 reader, no matter what the status of that person's 
 knowledge of art. A very good example of this 
 
144 Washington AUston 
 
 characteristic is found in his comparison of Michael 
 Angelo and Raphael : 
 
 "The genius of Michael Aiigelo was essentially 
 imaginative. It seems rarely to have been excited 
 by the objects with which we are daily familiar; and 
 when he did treat them, it was rather as things past, 
 as they appear to us through the atmosphere of the 
 hallowing memory. We have a striking instance of 
 this in his statue of Lorenzo de Medici; where, 
 retaining of the original only enough to mark the 
 individual, and investing the rest with an air of 
 grandeur that should accord with his actions, he has 
 left to his country, not a mere effigy of the person, 
 but an embodiment of the mind ; a portrait for pos- 
 terity, in which the unborn might recognize Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent. 
 
 "But the mind of Raphael was an overflowing 
 fountain of human sympathies ; and in all that con- 
 cerns man, in his vast varieties and complicated 
 relations, from the highest forms of majesty to the 
 humblest condition of humanity, even to the maimed 
 and misshapen, he may well be called a master. His 
 Apostles, his philosophers, and most ordinary sub- 
 ordinates are all to us as living beings ; nor do we 
 feel any doubt that they all had mothers, and 
 brothers, and kindred. In the assemblage of the 
 Apostles (already referred to) at the Death of 
 Ananias, we look upon men whom the effusion of 
 the Spirit has equally sublimated above every unholy 
 thought; a common power seems to have invested 
 them all with a preternatural majesty. Yet not an 
 iota of the individual is lost in any one; the gentle 
 bearing and amenity of John still follow him in his 
 office of almoner ; nor in Peter does the deep repose 
 of the erect attitude of the Apostle, as he deals the 
 death stroke to the offender by a simple bend of his 
 finger, subdue the energetic, sanguine temperament 
 of the Disciple." 
 
John James Audubon 145, 
 
 VIII 
 
 Now and then there arises from the horde of 
 money-getters a great soul who steals away from the 
 
 smoke-begrimed factories and the 
 
 John James pent-in offices, and, refusing to enter 
 
 Audubon the eternal rush for gold, seeks the 
 
 — solitude of forest and stream. It is 
 
 (1780=1851) necessary that we have such men ; for 
 
 amid the city's roar the artificial is too 
 often monarch ; men live and die and never become 
 intimately acquainted with their own souls ; and some 
 one must, of necessity, call us back to Nature and to 
 Nature's God. Such a one was John James Audu- 
 bon (1780-1851), than whom no more ardent lover 
 of Nature ever lived. He was born near New 
 Orleans and was educated partly in that city and 
 partly in France, where he also studied painting 
 under David. During his young manhood he had 
 charge of his father's estate in Pennsylvania and for 
 a time was a merchant in various Southern cities. 
 But, with his mind more on the birds and insects in 
 the distant woods than on the goods about him, he 
 failed most dismally as a money-maker. Fortunately 
 for the world, he at length gave up all regular busi- 
 ness pursuits, and spent his time in roaming hither 
 and thither in the primeval forest and recording the 
 life story of the wild creatures that he knew and 
 loved. 
 
 His greatest production is The Birds of America. 
 It is a large work, five volumes of descriptions and 
 narratives and four volumes of bird-portraits, life- 
 size, in colors, and each showing the bird's favorite 
 surroundings, trees, and plants. Such a work has 
 rarely been undertaken in the history of any litera- 
 ture, and certainly nothing of a similar nature has 
 been more thoroughly, more accurately, or more 
 
146 John James Audubon 
 
 entertainingly composed. His style is just that 
 which would be expected of a man in love with his 
 subject. Vivid in the extreme, it causes every scene 
 and event to stand before us as though in a picture. 
 All is so rich in tone, so enthusiastic, so full of the 
 color and sunshine of out-door life. And yet, 
 imagination never runs away with the scientific facts. 
 Nature-study is here not a dry-as-dust pursuit, but 
 a spiritual, imaginative, sympathetic revelation, fill- 
 ing the soul with longing for similar knowledge and 
 for a fresher life. Thus, he describes the mocking- 
 bird and its habitation : 
 
 "It is where the great magnolia shoots up its 
 majestic trunk, crowned with evergreen leaves, and 
 decorated with a thousand beautiful flowers, that 
 perfume the air around; where the forests and the 
 fields are adorned with blossoms of every hue; where 
 the golden orange ornaments the gardens and 
 groves; where bignonias of various kinds interlace 
 their climbing stems around the white-flowered 
 Stuartia, and, mounting still higher, cover the sum- 
 mits of the lofty trees around, accompanied with 
 innumerable vines that here and there festoon the 
 dense foliage of the magnificent woods, lending to 
 the vernal breeze a slight portion of the perfume of 
 their clustered flowers; where a genial warmth 
 seldom forsakes the atmosphere ; where berries and 
 fruits of all descriptions are met with at every step ; 
 in a word, kind reader, it is where Nature seems to 
 have paused, as she passed over the earth, and, open- 
 ing her stores, to have strewed with unsparing hand 
 the diversified seeds from which have sprung all the 
 beautiful forms which I should in vain attempt to 
 describe, that the mocking-bird should have fixed his 
 abode, there only that its wondrous song should be 
 heard. . . . See how he flies round his mate, 
 with motions as light as those of the butterfly. His 
 
John James Audubon 147 
 
 tail is widely expanded, he mounts in the air to a 
 small distance, describes a circle, and, again alight- 
 ing) approaches his beloved ones, his eyes gleaming 
 with delight, for she has already promised to be his 
 and his only. His beautiful wings are gently raised, 
 he bows to his love, and, again bouncing upwards, 
 opens his bill and pours forth his melody, full of 
 exultation at the conquest which he has made. 
 
 "They are not the soft sounds of the flute or of 
 the hautboy that I hear, but the sweeter notes of 
 Nature's own music. The mellowness of the song, 
 the varied modulations and graduations, the extent 
 of its compass, the great brilliancy of execution, are 
 unrivalled. There is probably no bird in the world 
 that possesses all the musical qualifications of this 
 king of song, who has derived all from Nature's 
 self." 
 
 Thus this remarkable man observed and wrote. 
 His whole life was largely one of solitude, calmness, 
 and obscurity; and yet it could but be full often of 
 intense pleasure ; for his work was his paradise. His 
 last days were spent at Minniesland, now Audubon 
 Park, New York City. His was a finer spirit than 
 that of his fellowman, contented in the life of Nature, 
 not needing the sympathy which among his thrifty 
 brethren he would have sought in vain. 
 
 "To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language ; for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
 Into his darker musings, with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness ere he is aware." 
 
148 Francis Lister Hawks 
 
 IX 
 
 The clergy has always played an important part in 
 American life, and while in the South it never 
 possessed that almost despotic power 
 Francis which it so long held in New England, 
 
 Lister there have been in its ranks, as we 
 
 Hawks have seen, many leaders in Southern 
 
 — movements. Especially has this been 
 
 (1798=1866) true in matters of education and litera- 
 ture. Among such moving spirits 
 was Francis Lister Hawks (1798-1866), of the 
 Episcopal Church. This good and learned man was 
 a native of North Carolina, and received part of his 
 education in the university of that State. In 1827 he 
 became a minister, holding important positions in 
 New Orleans, Baltimore, and other Southern cities; 
 but despite the heavy and responsible duties thus 
 placed upon him, he found time daily to take part in 
 public movements occurring about him. He was the 
 first president of the University of Louisiana; he 
 instituted efforts for better educational facilities in 
 the South ; he was frequently called upon as a public 
 lecturer ; he was a prolific writer. 
 
 Among his many works are the History of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, 
 Egypt and Its Monuments, Romance of Biography, 
 and Cyclopaedia of Biography; but by far his best 
 production is the admirable History of North Caro- 
 lina. He himself declared it a labor of love, and its 
 character warrants the assertion ; for it possesses the 
 lingering touches, the never-failing interest, and the 
 color of romance that give a true historical narrative 
 its permanency. And, yet, there is the studied 
 accuracy of a scholar. However, no better criticism 
 of a book can ever be given than a typical extract 
 
Francis Lister Hawks 149 
 
 from its pages. Here, then, is a portion of his narra- 
 tive telling the pitiful story of the Lost Colony of 
 Roanoke : 
 
 "White [the governor] found the island of 
 Roanoke a desert. As he approached he sounded a 
 signal trumpet, but no answer was heard to disturb 
 the melancholy stillness that brooded over the 
 deserted spot. What had become of the wretched 
 colonists ? No man may with certainty say ; for all 
 that White found to indicate their fate was a high 
 post bearing on it the letters CRO. and at the former 
 site of their village he found a tree which had been 
 deprived of its bark and bore in well cut characters 
 the word CROAT AN. There was some comfort in 
 finding no cross carved above the word, but this was 
 all the comfort the unhappy father and grand-father 
 could find. He of course hastened back to the fleet, 
 determined instantly to go to Croatan, but a com- 
 bination of unpropitious events defeated his anxious 
 wishes ; storms and a deficiency of food forced the 
 vessels to run for the West Indies for the purpose of 
 refitting, wintering, and returning; but even in this 
 plan White was disappointed and found himself 
 reluctantly compelled to run for the western islands 
 and thence for England. Thus ended the effort to 
 find the lost colony ; they were never heard of. That 
 they went to Croatan, where the natives were 
 friendly, is almost certain; that they became grad- 
 ually incorporated with them is probable from the 
 testimony of a historian (John Lawson) who lived 
 in North Carolina and wrote in 17 14 : 'The Hatteras 
 Indians who live on Roanoke Island or much 
 frequent it, tell us' (says he) 'that several of their 
 ancestors were white people and could talk in a book 
 as we do; the truth of which is confirmed by gray 
 eyes being found frequently amongst these Indians 
 and no others.' " 
 
150 Charles Gayarre 
 
 X 
 
 Every student of Southern Literature must be 
 
 perplexed to know in what period to place Charles 
 
 Etienne Arthur Gayarre (1805- 
 
 Charles 1895). His life was so long, so full 
 
 Gayarre and rich in its every year; he was 
 
 — affected by so many movements and 
 
 (1805=1895) schools of thought; he saw so many 
 
 theories and beliefs rise, flourish, and 
 
 decay, so large a body of literature written, — could 
 
 such a man belong to any one period? Perhaps it 
 
 is best to place him in the era closing with the middle 
 
 of the nineteenth century ; for by that time fame had 
 
 already come to him. But the rich productions of 
 
 his intellect had but fairly begun at that date. 
 
 He was born at New Orleans of a family descended 
 from the first settlers of that city and from the 
 nobility of France. His paternal grandfather intro- 
 duced sugar-culture into Louisiana; his maternal 
 grandfather was treasurer of the colony under 
 France; his ancestors, the Grandpres, were among 
 the founders of that colony. Thus, if heredity count 
 for anything, he was highly fortunate in his birth. 
 He was educated in New Orleans, and, after study- 
 ing law at Philadelphia, he spent much of his life in 
 his native city. Shortly after his return from the 
 North he wrote in French An Historical Essay on 
 Louisiana. This first attempt was highly praised 
 and gained him some prominence. At the age of 
 twenty-five he was a member of the State legisla- 
 ture, and five years later (1835) he was chosen 
 United States Senator. But at this time his health 
 failed him, and, having been advised to go abroad, 
 he spent eight years in France, There, Irving-like, 
 he was a rather active invalid; for instead of rest- 
 ing, he worked most industriously collecting material 
 
Charles Gayarre 151 
 
 for his History of Louisiana, also written in French. 
 This was indeed a notable piece of work, and the 
 unstinted praise bestowed upon it was highly merited. 
 From this time forth his position as a scholarly 
 writer was firmly established, and year after year, 
 by his careful, accurate, and ever entertaining pro- 
 ductions he continued to gain fresh laurels. 
 
 He was an ardent defender of Southern customs 
 and institutions, and without doubt he deserved the 
 affectionate title of "Champion of the South." 
 Especially zealous among such defensive works is 
 his Creoles of History and Creoles of Romance, a 
 study refuting the statements and descriptions of the 
 novelist, George W. Cable. A man living to such 
 an age as Gayarre did, even if a slow writer, could 
 write much, and our author does not disappoint us 
 in the quantity of his work. His productions cover 
 a wide range of subjects in history and biography, 
 and to these must be added two dramas, The School 
 for Politics and Dr. Bluff in Russia, a comedy. 
 
 Gayarre was a gentleman of the old school. Ever 
 quietly industrious, he was not drawn into the 
 whirlpool of boasted American strenuousness. If 
 we may so express it, he took time to get on good 
 speaking terms with himself, and his courteous and 
 dignified bearing gave the impression of a man who 
 was complete master of himself. Similar traits are 
 apparent in his writings. Although the style is not 
 always so precise and terse as modern tastes demand, 
 there is plenty of color and. ease, while legends and 
 traditions give the whole a tinge of romance. As 
 Maurice Thompson has observed, there is "the temp- 
 tation to be a romancer rather than remain a his- 
 torian." We forgive the weakness — if weakness it 
 be — in such lines as these following, taken from his 
 History of Louisiana. The time is 1751. 
 
152 Charles Gayarre 
 
 "On board of the same ships, there came sixty 
 girls, who were transported to Louisiana at the 
 expense of the King. It was the last emigration of 
 the kind. These girls were married to such soldiers 
 as had distinguished themselves for their good con- 
 duct, and who, in consideration of their marriage, 
 were discharged from service. Concessions of land 
 were made to each happy pair, with one cow and its 
 calf, one cock and five hens, one gun, one axe, and 
 one spade. During the first three years of their 
 settlement they were to receive rations of provisions, 
 and a small quantity of powder, shot, grains, and 
 seeds of all sorts. 
 
 "Such is the humble origin of many of our most 
 respectable and wealthy families, and well may they 
 be proud of a social position, which is due to the 
 honest industry and hereditary virtues of several 
 generations. Whilst some of patrician extraction, 
 crushed under the weight of vices, or made inert by 
 sloth, or labor-contemning pride, and degenerating 
 from pure gold into vile dross, have been swept 
 away, and have sunk into the dregs and sewers of 
 the commonwealth. Thus in Louisiana, the high 
 and the low, although the country has never suffered 
 from any political or civil convulsions, seem to have, 
 in the course of one century, frequently exchanged 
 with one another their respective positions, much 
 to the philosopher's edification." 
 
 With Gayarre the present study of this class of 
 prose writers must close. Such men, though not so 
 widely read as the fiction writers, are important as 
 intellectual pathfinders. Their attempts to show the 
 philosophy of life and its movements were particu- 
 larly welcome in the South; for their readers, we 
 must remember, constituted for the most part the 
 leisurely rural class, who held rather persistently to 
 the older schools of literature and of thought in gen- 
 
Fiction 153 
 
 eral. With the coming of the Civil War, the atten- 
 tion of all thinking men was turned to the ominous 
 present, and speculative philosophies gave way to 
 fearful realities. The discussion of war and its mis- 
 eries held with tyrannous power the minds of all 
 men, and the ancients and their schools returned for 
 the time being to oblivion. Nor did they return with 
 anything of the old-time vigor. For, with the close 
 of this second great period that tried men's souls, the 
 New South was created, and the furnace, the factory, 
 and manifold other agencies of production, with 
 their busy activities, destroyed for all time the 
 unwarranted leisure of the Old South. 
 
 FICTION 
 
 In fiction the ante-bellum South produced but one 
 writer of the first rank — Poe; but it has never 
 suffered from a dearth of story-tellers. Both the 
 natural tastes of the people and the environment 
 were highly conducive to narrative productions. For 
 its readers, though fond of law, court-room elo- 
 quence, and statesmanship, and possessing a liking 
 for the more serious Reviews of Edinburgh and 
 London, so popular in the opening years of the nine- 
 teenth century, had on the shelves of their libraries 
 well-thumbed volumes of Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, 
 Richardson, and others of the early English novel- 
 ists; and many a quiet hour, stolen from the busy 
 court-room or resounding legislative hall or far- 
 stretched cotton and tobacco fields, was spent with 
 these now forsaken authors. In that day the man 
 of the world spared more time for such things of 
 culture than now. Especially was this true in a 
 section where cities and their opportunities were 
 extremely few, where among the upper classes wealth 
 
154 Fiction 
 
 was attained without strenuous efforts, and where 
 leisure for self-improvement was a recognized 
 necessity. 
 
 And what of the environment? To the close 
 observer the people south of the Potomac in that 
 day would seem a very fountain of material for 
 fiction. So many classes, so many oddities, so many 
 conditions brought about by ancestry, locality, train- 
 ing, — what better things for romance-making could 
 any man desire? While New England was settled 
 largely by a people of one class and of one general 
 way of thinking, the Southern States had the aris- 
 tocratic planter, often a descendant of English no- 
 bility, the shiftless folk known as the "poor whites," 
 the negroes, born either in America or among 
 greatly differing African tribes, the Spanish blood in 
 Florida and South Carolina, the French and Creole 
 in Louisiana, — all these and others. Of these the 
 planter, the poor white, and the negro were, of 
 course, the most important in literature; for every 
 community had all three, and their respective charac- 
 teristics were known and easily recognized by all. 
 
 Many of the conditions were conducive to fun- 
 making, and though in the next period we shall find 
 this section a land of bitterness and pathos, it would 
 seem that at the time now under discussion this was 
 indeed the home of laughter. The eccentricities of 
 one class were highly amusing to another, and the 
 class thus entertained furnished amusement for still 
 another class. The negro was then, as now, a 
 fountain-head of anecdotes, while the customs and 
 superstitions of that class which he scornfully dubbed 
 "the po' white trash" were an unfailing source of 
 humor. In such a literature dialect must hold an 
 important place, and description will be an ever 
 present helpmate. It will not be a subtle humor; 
 for subtlety is not usually a companion of ignorance, 
 
Alexander Garden 155 
 
 and ignorance is characteristic, of the people de- 
 scribed. The jokes are broad and not sharp-edged, 
 clear and never deep. Such humor is a producer of 
 whole-souled laughter, and, taken all in all, while 
 not possessing the rare excellence of an Irving mas- 
 terpiece, it is more than good and admirably natural. 
 But let us drop the general and enter into details; 
 let us observe briefly a very few of these story- 
 writers of ante-bellum days. 
 
 In 1822 there appeared a volume entitled Anec- 
 dotes of the Revolutionary War in America — a book 
 
 gaining sufficient popularity to war- 
 Alexander rant a second edition in 1828. Its 
 Garden author, Alexander Garden, was a 
 
 — Charlestonian and was very proud of 
 
 (1757=1829) the fact. With the exception of his 
 
 schooldays in Glasgow, Scotland, his 
 entire life was spent in the historic town, and in all 
 of the movements for the city he was always an 
 enthusiastic leader. Having served in the Revolu- 
 tionary War, first as an officer in Lee's famous 
 legion and later as an aid-de-camp to General Greene, 
 he was intimately acquainted with many of the great 
 leaders of those days and had seen many occurrences 
 of vast importance in the nation's history. When, 
 therefore, as an old man, he came to look back upon 
 the trying days of his and the nation's youth, he 
 composed a book of such fullness and genuine inter- 
 est that to this day it is considered one of the source- 
 books for the history of the period. 
 
 The book has been reserved for notice under this 
 division of our study because of the fact that it is 
 so largely a collection of narratives, and, moreover, 
 narratives often sparkling with the wit of repartee. 
 
156 Alexander Garden 
 
 Be it remembered that the veteran was intensely 
 patriotic, and his stories, like those of most old 
 soldiers, are somewhat one-sided. They generally 
 show the discomfiture of the British and the firm- 
 ness, bravery, and sharp wit of the American, or 
 more particularly of the Southern woman. For 
 instance, he tells of an encounter between a British 
 officer and an unabashed Colonial dame : 
 
 "Mrs. Daniel Hall, having obtained permission 
 to pay a visit to her mother on John's Island, was 
 on the point of embarking, when an officer, stepping 
 forward, in the most authoritative manner, de- 
 manded the key of her trunk. 'What do you expect 
 to find there?' said the lady. 'I seek for treason,' 
 was the reply. 'You may save yourself the trouble 
 of search, then,' said Mrs. Hall — 'You may find a 
 plenty of it at my tongue's end !' " 
 
 A book containing a large number of such anec- 
 dotes and written less than ten years after the second 
 war with Great Britain could not fail of popularity. 
 From time to time other veterans of either war 
 related their memories of strange adventures, and 
 thus at length a large body of sketches amusing, 
 pathetic, or tragic came into existence. In time 
 every daily or weekly of any importance had its staff 
 of contributors to the sketch or short story column, 
 and from such a beginning nearly every Southern 
 humorist and fiction writer of ante-bellum days 
 traced his literary career. The newspaper during 
 this period was indeed a leading spirit in Southern 
 Literature. 
 
Davy Crockett 157 
 
 II 
 
 Attention has been called to the fact that much 
 of the literature of the South has been the work of 
 the amateur. Few indeed were the 
 Davy Southern men and women prior to 
 
 Crockett the Civil War who made literature 
 
 — a profession. In the opinion of many 
 
 (1786=1836) it was hardly the pursuit for a "gentle- 
 man," and Southerners of this period 
 were great sticklers regarding that title. The per- 
 son whom we shall now discuss was no exception 
 to the rule of amateurishness, as his writings will 
 easily show; but as a stickler about titles he held 
 no claims. Who has not heard of Davy Crockett ? 
 Upon the mention of that name visions of bears, 
 Indians, and battles in the wilderness immediately 
 appear; but let it not be forgotten that Davy was 
 something of a writer, and in his day a very popular 
 one too. 
 
 David Crockett was born at Limestone, Green 
 county, Tennessee. His father opened a tavern on 
 the much-traveled road extending from Abingdon 
 to Knoxville, and there among the passing throng 
 of men of many classes and from many sections, he 
 spent the early years of his life. He was sent to a 
 country school, but on the fourth day, so he claims, 
 he had a fight with the teacher and hastily left for 
 parts unknown. Year after year was spent in the 
 wilderness west of his home, and not until he was 
 eighteen did he return to his boyhood home. He 
 found himself an extremely ignorant man, unable 
 either to read or to write, and skillful in no work 
 but hunting. He again entered school, learned the 
 elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic in two 
 months' time, soon married, and removed again to 
 the wilderness. He served in the War of 1812, and, 
 
158 Davy Crockett 
 
 returning once more to the forest settlement, became 
 famous along the frontier as the best shot in the 
 section. In 1821 he became a candidate for repre- 
 sentative in the Tennessee legislature, and by his 
 skill in shooting and in telling jokes, more than by 
 his knowledge of political conditions, he secured the 
 election. He was twice re-elected; for, despite his 
 evident lack of training, he showed himself an 
 honest, fearless, and often capable leader of men. 
 
 From an obscure hunter in the backwoods to a 
 United States Congressman in six years is a quick 
 stride; but Crockett accomplished it by the year 
 1827, and, moreover, was re-elected. He was long 
 a notable figure on the streets of Washington; for 
 he rather scorned fashion and wore his hair and 
 clothing in a manner more suitable for the wilder- 
 ness than for the national capital. Strange stories 
 about his origin, life, and deeds were circulated, 
 and Davy, in sheer self-defense, felt called upon to 
 take up a weapon very cumbrous to him — the pen — 
 and write his Autobiography (1834). Surprising 
 indeed was the success of the unique book, and the 
 hunter-statesman-author soon brought out another 
 volume, A Tour of the North and Down East 
 (1835). In the same year, however, he began to 
 oppose his old friend, Jackson, and, finding that 
 this act had weakened his influence in Tennessee, he 
 removed to Texas and aided that State in the strug- 
 gle for independence. In 1836 his Exploits and 
 Adventures in Texas appeared, and with this his 
 career ended. At the surrender of the Alamo in 
 that year, he and five other prisoners were shot by 
 order of General Santa Anna. 
 
 Whatever may be the defects of this man's work, 
 it is at all times strikingly original. His grammar 
 was of a unique species; his spelling was at times 
 wonderful in its simplicity ; but his strong mind and 
 
Davy Crockett 159 
 
 plain common sense aided him in couching his words 
 in a telHng way. And his independence in literature 
 was as marked as his fearlessness in hunting. 
 
 "I don't know of anything in my book to be 
 criticised on by honorable men. Is it on my spell- 
 ing ? — that's not my trade. Is it on my grammar ? — 
 I hadn't time to learn it, and make no pretensions 
 to it. Is it on the order and arrangement of my 
 book? — I never wrote one before, and never read 
 very many; and, of course, know mighty little about 
 that. Will it be on the authorship of the book? — 
 this I claim, and I'll hang on to it, like a waxplaster. 
 . . . I would not be such a fool, or knave either, 
 as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a 
 friend or so, and that some little alterations have 
 been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am 
 not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for 
 I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. 
 And as for grammar, it's pretty much a thing of 
 nothing at last, after all the fuss that's made over 
 it . . . while critics were learning grammar, 
 and learning to spell, I, and 'Doctor Jackson, L.L.D.,' 
 were fighting in the wars." 
 
 The collection of narratives, which he entitled an 
 Autobiography, is good in its dramatic quality. The 
 stories are exciting and compel interest; they have 
 the directness, the virility of a man of fearless deeds. 
 Bear hunts, Indian fights, thrilling adventures of 
 many kinds, — these are the substance of the book. 
 For instance, he describes a bear hunt taken at night. 
 The bear is "treed." 
 
 "I commenced loading for a third fire, but the 
 first thing I knowed the bear was down among my 
 dogs, and they were fighting all around me. I had 
 my big butcher in my belt, and I had a pair of 
 dressed buckskin breeches on. So I took out my 
 knife, and stood, determined, if he should get hold 
 
160 Davy Crockett 
 
 of me, to defend myself in the best way I could. I 
 stood there for some time, and could now and then 
 see a white dog I had, but the rest of them and the 
 bear, which were dark coloured, I couldn't see at 
 all, it was so miserable dark. They still fought 
 around me, and sometimes within three feet of me, 
 but at last, the bear got down into one of the cracks 
 that the earthquake had made in the ground, about 
 four feet deep, and I could tell the biting end of him 
 by the hollering of my dogs. So I took my gun and 
 pushed the muzzle of it about, till I thought I had 
 it against the main part of his body, and fired ; but 
 it happened to be only the flesh part of his foreleg. 
 With this I jumped out of the crack, and he and 
 the dogs had another hard fight around me, as 
 before. At last, however, they forced him back 
 into the crack again, as he was when I had shot. I 
 made a lunge with my long knife, and fortunately 
 struck him right through the heart ; at which he just 
 sank down, and I crawled out in a hurry." 
 
 Such a form of literature was not without its use 
 in those days. It kept the cultivated East in touch 
 with the untamed West: it stirred the imagination 
 of young readers ; its tendency was to give virility 
 to succeeding literature. In the somewhat epic 
 primitiveness of its scenes and deeds there is that 
 which may serve as splendid material for the hand 
 of a future master. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It has been mentioned that one source of humor 
 in the South was the "poor whites," the most igno- 
 rant and yet probably the most well-meaning people 
 in the United States. In many ways they show 
 themselves a class left far behind in the forward 
 movement of civilization, — a people who, through 
 
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet 161 
 
 their privations, remoteness from centers of popu- 
 lation, and lack of incentives, have failed to advance 
 in those characteristics which help man to cope with 
 the ever-changing problems of the present-day- 
 world. Perhaps in no other way is this fact shown 
 so forcibly as in the language of this strange people. 
 It is a peculiar dialect, inclining, in its use of words 
 and in its phraseology, back to the speech of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth century, while in the inflec- 
 tion of its nouns and verbs it not infrequently holds 
 memories of the English of Chaucer and Langland. 
 A strange, quaint tongue it is, — unprogressive, 
 lingering beyond its day, symbolical of the people 
 that speak it. 
 
 In Georgia where they are known as "Crackers," 
 they have always been very numerous, and conse- 
 quently some of the best descrip- 
 Augustus tions of them ever written are to be 
 Baldwin found in the Georgia Scenes (1835) 
 
 Longstreet of Augustus Baldwin Longstreet 
 — ( 1 790-1 870). Longstreet was born 
 
 (1790=1870) at Augusta, Georgia, and, as a boy, 
 studied at Richmond Academy, a 
 school which he so thoroughly despised that only 
 with much persuading could he be induced to remain 
 for even a few months. Yet it was in this very 
 school that the first important arousing of his intel- 
 lect occurred; for a room-mate, George McDuffie, 
 who was an intense student, caused him to note his 
 own ignorance and long for a broader knowledge. 
 He became a member of a South Carolina school 
 taught by the famous Dr. Moses Waddell, advanced 
 rapidly, and in 181 1 entered the Junior class at Yale. 
 The two years spent in that institution he always 
 referred to as the happiest days of his life. After 
 graduating, he studied in the law school at Litchfield, 
 Connecticut, and in 181 5 returned to Georgia. Six 
 
162 Augustus Baldwin Longstreet 
 
 years later he was a member of the State legisla- 
 ture and the next year became a Judge of the 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 Year after year Longstreet's fame as a jurist 
 increased, and with his establishing of The Augusta 
 Sentinel in 1838 his opportunities in politics seem 
 to have been most encouraging. But in that year 
 a notable change occurred in his life. The death 
 of a relative called his attention to the claims of 
 religion ; he studied the question deeply ; and, in the 
 end, he decided to give up his ambitions as a states- 
 man and enter the ministry. He was made pastor 
 of a church in his native city, and henceforth he 
 was a religious power. In 1839 he became president 
 of Centenary College, Louisiana ; later, president of 
 the University of Mississippi, and in his last years, 
 president of South Carolina State College. He was 
 again president of the University of Mississippi 
 when he died. 
 
 Longstreet wrote much, among his most popular 
 works being Letters from Georgia to Massachusetts 
 and William Mitten (1858); but by far the best 
 piece of writing that he ever attempted is Georgia 
 Scenes, Characters, and Incidents. These sketches 
 first appeared in newspapers, later were gathered 
 in a volume in the South (1835), and finally were 
 published in New York in 1840. In after years 
 Longstreet, the preacher, became very much ashamed 
 of the pieces and in fact considered them such sin- 
 ful efforts that when a second edition appeared in 
 1867 he absolutely disowned it. And yet he has 
 caught the very spirit of the people whom he brings 
 before us. The pathetic and yet humorous same- 
 ness of their life, the long conversations over trifling 
 affairs that other people would dismiss with a word, 
 the ridiculous narrowness of their views, the ina- 
 
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet 163 
 
 bility to grasp the principles of modem society, the 
 prejudices, superstition, credulity — these traits are 
 all well portrayed. 
 
 In our present study space is too limited to dis- 
 cuss many of these portrayals, and short specimens 
 from the conversation of these people cannot show 
 their character in a satisfactory manner. Let us 
 notice one figure, not exactly belonging to the 
 "Cracker" element, but yet serving as an example of 
 Longstreet's humor. Ned Brace, the practical joker, 
 is a good picture of the typical country wit, such as 
 may yet be seen in any rural district. His humor is 
 broad and not always so refined as it might be ; and 
 yet it compels laughter. For instance, Ned goes to 
 church : 
 
 "Ned enters the church in as fast a walk as he 
 could possibly assume; proceeded about half down 
 the aisle and popped himself down in his seat as 
 quick as if he had been shot. The more thought- 
 less of the congregation began to titter, and the 
 graver peeped up slily, but solemnly at him. 
 
 "The pastor rose, and before giving out the hymn, 
 observed that singing was a part of the service, 
 in which he thought the whole congregation ought 
 to join. ... As soon as the tune was raised, 
 Ned struck in, with one of the loudest, hoarsest, and 
 most discordant voices that ever annoyed a solemn 
 assembly. 
 
 " 'I would observe,' said the preacher, before giv- 
 ing out the next two lines, 'that there are some 
 people who have not the gift of singing; such of 
 course are not expected to sing.' . . . 
 
 "As soon as the pastor commenced his sermon, 
 Ned opened his eyes, threw back his head, dropt his 
 under jaw, and surrendered himself to the most 
 intense interest. . . . 
 
164 William Tappan Thompson 
 
 "The effect which his conduct had upon the 
 congregation, and their subsequent remarks, must 
 be left to the imagination of the reader. . . . 
 
 " 'Bless that good man who came in the church 
 so quick/ said a venerable matron as she left the 
 church door, 'how he was affected by the sarment !' " 
 
 Ned, who was a great strapping fellow, met a 
 funeral procession and, seeing a dwarf at the end of 
 the line, stepped in and walked with the little 
 fellow, thus greatly endangering the solemnity of 
 the occasion. "They proceeded but a little way 
 before Ned inquired of his companion who was 
 dead. 
 
 " 'Mr. Noah Bills,' said the little man. 
 
 " 'Nan ?' said Ned, raising his hand to his ear in 
 token of deafness, and bending his head to the 
 speaker. 
 
 " 'Mr. Noah Bills,' repeated the little man, loud 
 enough to disturb the two couples immediately 
 before him. 
 
 " 'Mrs. Noah's Bill,' said Ned, with mortification 
 and astonishment. 'Do the white persons pay such 
 respect to niggers in Savannah? / sha'n't do it.' 
 So saying, he left the procession. . . . The 
 procession now exhibited a most mortifying spec- 
 tacle — the head of it in mourning and in tears, and 
 the foot of it convulsed with laughter." 
 
 IV 
 
 Another writer of somewhat the same order as 
 
 Longstreet, and indeed a co-worker with him in 
 
 newspaper editing, was William 
 
 William Tappan Thompson (1812-1882). 
 
 Tappan He was a native of Ohio, and was the 
 
 Thompsoh first white child born in the Western 
 
 — Reserve. At the age of twenty-three 
 
 (1812=1882) he went to Georgia, spent the greater 
 
 part of his life there, and became an 
 
 enthusiastic leader in many Southern movements. 
 
William Tappan Thompson 165 
 
 With Judge Longstreet he edited the Stated-Rights 
 Sentinel at Augusta, and, passing from one paper to 
 another, he at length made himself famous through 
 The Miscellany, published at Madison, Georgia. 
 For here it was that he conceived the idea of 
 describing the life of the strange rural class of the 
 section, and in this paper were published the sketches 
 known as Major Jones's Courtship (1840). Three 
 years later came Major Jones's Chronicles of Pine- 
 ville and Major Jones's Sketches of Travel. In the 
 meantime Thompson had gone to Baltimore, where, 
 with Park Benjamin, he edited The Western Con- 
 tinent. He remained in this work until 1850 and 
 then, having removed to Savannah, he established 
 The Morning News, with which paper he was con- 
 " nected until his death. 
 
 Thompson essayed several forms of literature. 
 He wrote a farce, The Live Indian; he dramatized 
 The Vicar of Wakefield; he wrote sketches and dis- 
 sertations for various periodicals ; but the real genius 
 of the man is shown in his Major Jones series. 
 What ridiculous mishaps come to this gallant 
 Georgian, Major Jones ! Well meaning, brave, hos- 
 pitable, he yet has the faculty of making himself 
 ridiculous. But by "hook or crook" he nevertheless 
 comes forth victor at last. Thus, to win Miss Mary's 
 hand, he hanged himself up, as a Christmas gift, in a 
 bag on her back porch, but during the night the 
 ardent lover almost perished because of the intense 
 cold and because, also, of a dog that stood under the 
 bag and barked "like he thought he'd treed some- 
 thing." But when, next morning. Miss Mary dis- 
 covered the contents of the sack, the half-frozen 
 major might well say, "It was worth hangin' in a 
 meal bag from one Christmas to another." 
 
 In these sketches both situation and dialect com- 
 bine to make a wholesome humor, while the major's 
 
166 Johnson Hooper 
 
 utter innocence of his own ridiculous appearance 
 adds to the entertainment. The dog's barking and 
 snapping at the bag is a very serious affair to the 
 lover. 
 
 " 'Bow ! wow ! wow !' ses he. Then he'd smell 
 agin, and try to git up to the bag. 'Git out,' ses I, 
 very low, for fear the galls mought hear me. 'Bow ! 
 wow !' ses he. 'Begone, you bominable fool !' ses I, 
 and I felt all over in spots, for I spected every minit 
 he'd nip me, and what made it worse, I didn't know 
 wharabouts he'd take hold. 'Bow! wow! wow!'- 
 Then I tried coaxin'. 'Come here, good feller,' ses 
 I, and whistled a little to him, but it wasn't no use. 
 Thar he stood, and kep up his everlastin' barkin' and 
 whinin' all night. I couldn't tell when daylight was 
 breakin' only by the chickens crowin', and I was 
 monstrous glad to hear 'em, for if I'd had to stay thar 
 one hour more, I don't believe I'd ever got out of 
 that bag alive." 
 
 Here again we have something typical of the rural 
 life of the Old South. In such characters as Major 
 Jones are many of the virtues and few of the graver 
 faults ; but there is that about the provincial and out- 
 landish which never fails to attract what might be 
 called the "universal mind." Lacking perhaps in 
 subtlety and depth, such work as Thompson's retains, 
 however, a sense of truthfulness that makes it all the 
 more pleasing. 
 
 V 
 
 The last of these sketch writers here to be dis- 
 cussed, but by no means the last that might be dis- 
 cussed, is Johnson Hooper (1815- 
 Johnson 1863). He was born in North Caro- 
 
 Hooper Una, but, while still a child, removed 
 
 — to Alabama, and there, as editor, law- 
 
 (1815=1863) yer, and statesman, performed notable 
 services for the State and for the 
 entire South. He was secretary of the provisional 
 
Johnson Hooper 167 
 
 Confederate Congress, and during the Civil War 
 held various important positions under the new gov- 
 ernment. The first work that called the attention 
 of the public to Hooper as a writer, was his Adven- 
 tures of Captain Simon Suggs (1845), ^ r^cy piece 
 of literature, describing a gambling sharp of the 
 Southwest during its first boom days. Six years 
 later he followed this successful venture with his 
 Widow Rugby's Husband and Other Tales of 
 Alabama; but this was not a work of the same merit, 
 and it very deservedly failed to gain the same wide 
 popularity. 
 
 Here again we find the humorist dealing with the 
 "poor whites," not Georgia Crackers this time, it is 
 true, but Alabamians of the same type. Again, too, 
 we find the same conflict between ignorant conserva- 
 tism and progress. The ridiculous suspicions and, 
 at the same time, the extreme credulity of these 
 rustics of the back counties afford many a humorous 
 situation. But beneath all the fun, as we read of 
 the stern, gloomy ideas of God and religion, the 
 inborn rascality found even among such well-mean- 
 ing people, and the struggle between goodness and 
 greed, we discover, perhaps unintentionally on the 
 author's part, an element of pathos. The purpose 
 of the book, however, is that of fun-making, and in 
 that particular it is a decided success. For instance, 
 the census officer comes to an old widow's house to 
 secure the required information, and the suspicious 
 lady threatens to "sick" the dogs on them. 
 
 " 'Last week Bill Stonecker's two-year-old steer 
 jumped my yard fence, and Bull and Pomp tuk him 
 by the throat and they killed him afore my boys could 
 break 'im loose to save the world.' 
 
 " 'Yes, ma'am,' said we meekly; 'Bull and Pomp 
 seem to be very fine dogs.' 
 
168 Johnson Hooper 
 
 "At length ... we remarked that . . . 
 we would just set down the age, sex, and complexion 
 of each member of her family. 
 
 " 'No sich a thing — ^you'll do no sich a thing,' said 
 she, . . . 'I've got five in family, and they are 
 all a plaguy sight whiter than you, and whether they 
 are he or she is none of your consarns.' " 
 
 Thus the rant goes on, and the old woman finally 
 offers, indeed begs for, the opportunity to kill the 
 marshal, several government officers and at length 
 President Van Buren himself. " 'A pretty fellow to 
 be eating his vittles out'n gold spoons that poor 
 people's taxed for, and raisin' an army to get him 
 made king of Ameriky.' " In time the census men 
 give up their effort, but when safely on their horses, 
 they decided to give her a parting compliment. 
 
 " 'Do you want to get married ?' 
 
 " 'Here, Bull,' shouted the widow, 'sick him. 
 Pomp . . . Si-c-k, Pomp — sick, sick, si-c-k 
 him. Bull — suboy, suboy, suboy.' " 
 
 Humor has improved greatly since those times, 
 and today it cannot be doubted that America's most 
 original, and perhaps best, contributions to the 
 world's literature have been along this line. Possess- 
 ing a familiarity with the more subtle and refined 
 efforts of the later wit, we may find the sketches that 
 made our fathers laugh, rather common and even 
 unentertaining, but placing ourselves, in imagination, 
 among the same surroundings, and, remembering 
 that many of the characters and scenes described 
 were familiar to every Southerner, we can under- 
 stand, perhaps, the wide popularity of these pioneers 
 in American humor. 
 
 VI 
 
 Of sketch writers there were many ; every news- 
 paper possessed a more than abundant supply. But 
 
George Tucker 169 
 
 the number of men and women capable of the more 
 sustained effort required in novel-writing was very 
 small, and of these few only two or three at the most 
 deserve a place among the leading American novel- 
 ists. Many of these attempts in the South, as well 
 as in the North, were mere copies and unintentional 
 burlesques of foreign productions, and possessed no 
 more American flavor than if they had been produced 
 in the jungles of Africa. Lords, dukes, counts, 
 weeping, sentimental ladies, charitable roblaers, and 
 other beings largely unknown in America were not 
 infrequently brought into the narrative, while "apt 
 alliteration's artful aid" was often apparent in the 
 wording of the title-page. But a few men, such as 
 John Pendleton Kennedy and William Gilmore 
 Simms, grasped the idea of an American romance, 
 and showed to the reader of their day that their 
 native land was capable of the same color and 
 imaginative treatment as was the Old World. 
 
 Among the first of such writers was George 
 Tucker (1775-1861) of Virginia. He was born 
 in the Bermudas, came to Virginia in 
 George his twelfth year, and was educated 
 
 Tucker by the brilliant and kind-hearted St. 
 
 — George Tucker. Having taken up the 
 
 (1775=1861) practice of law in Lynchburg, he 
 naturally drifted into politics, and in 
 1 819 entered Congress. In 1825 he became pro- 
 fessor of Moral Philosophy and Political Science in 
 the University of Virginia, a position which he held 
 for twenty years. 
 
 Perhaps this man, who was far more a thinker 
 than a dreamer in the realm of the imaginative, 
 should have been discussed among the writers of 
 serious prose ; for the long list of his works contains 
 such titles as Essays on Taste, Morals, and Policy, 
 Principles of Rent, Wages, Etc., Literature of the 
 
170 William Carruthers 
 
 United States, Life of Thomas Jefferson,and History 
 of the United States. But in spite of the depth of 
 these efforts, some of which are still considered of 
 importance, the works which approach most nearly 
 to real contributions to literature are his novel, The 
 Valley of the Shenandoah, and the satirical romance, 
 A Voyage to the Moon. These, which were written 
 in Tucker's youth, while showing some power of 
 imagination, have not the freedom of expression, 
 thought, and character required in the making of a 
 great book. And yet, because of the dearth of some- 
 thing better, these two efforts were in his day rather 
 widely read and spoken of with approval. Today 
 they are important only because they serve us in 
 noting the gradual development of American, and 
 especially Southern, fiction. 
 
 VII 
 
 Another novel of those early days, and one that 
 was indeed exceedingly popular, was Cavaliers of 
 
 Virginia ( 1832), written by William 
 
 William Carruthers (1806- 1872). Little has 
 
 Carruthers been recorded concerning the life of 
 
 — Carruthers, and doubtless many of his 
 
 (1806=1872) best sketches are now hopelessly lost 
 
 in magazines long since dead. He 
 was born in Virginia, and after a course at Wash- 
 ington College, in that State, studied medicine and 
 went to Savannah to practise. He was a frequent 
 and welcomed contributor to the earlier magazines, 
 and one of these articles, describing a perilous ascent 
 of Natural Bridge, and published in Knickerbocker 
 Magazine (1838) has been one of the most widely 
 read sketches ever written by an American. Indeed, 
 to this day, this early effort is reprinted in many 
 books of popular selections. 
 
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 171 
 
 His writing's are all spirited, and his two longest 
 works, Cavaliers of Virginia and Knights of the 
 Horseshoe (1845), deal with their themes in a sur- 
 prisingly fresh and artistic manner. In the first we 
 have, as the center of interest, Bacon's Rebellion, and 
 the enmity ever existing between the Royalists and 
 the followers of Cromwell in Virginia ; in the second 
 is portrayed Governor Spotswood's momentous 
 expedition into the unknown regions beyond the 
 mountains of Virginia ; and in both, though there is 
 something of a lack of individuality in the characters 
 and of logic in the plot, the spirited action, the fresh- 
 ness of tone, and the conception of the greater nation 
 to come save the books from mediocrity. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Such were the first attempts at novel-writing in 
 the South. Those early efforts are seldom heard of 
 
 now, and perhaps their fate is a de- 
 Nathaniel served one. But in 1836 there 
 Beverley appeared a book that was hailed as a 
 Tucker work of rich worth, and that, in one 
 
 — way or another, held itself before 
 
 (1784=1851) the reading public for many a year 
 
 after its first appearance. This was 
 The Partisan Leader by Nathaniel Beverley 
 Tucker (i 784-1 851). The author was a son of 
 St. George Tucker, and, of course, with such a 
 father, received the best in education then obtainable 
 in the South. After graduation at William and 
 Mary College and after the inevitable course in law, 
 he went, in 181 5, to Missouri to practise his pro- 
 fession, and during the fifteen years spent in that 
 State met with enviable success. But once a Vir- 
 ginian always a Virginian, and in 1834 we find the 
 
172 Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 
 
 lawyer a professor in his alma mater, a position 
 which he retained during the remaining years of 
 his life. 
 
 The lawyer in Southern Literature is worthy of 
 a thesis, and therefore no attempt to enlarge upon 
 the subject will be made at this time. But of the 
 many writers of the legal cult Nathaniel Tucker was 
 perhaps the most talented and the most successful. 
 Widely known in his day as the writer of many 
 thoughtful essays on public questions, the author of 
 a volume on Political Science, and the biographer 
 of John Randolph, he added much to his fame by 
 his novels, George Balcombe, Gertrude, and, above 
 all, The Partisan Leader. The first two were above 
 the average fiction of the time; but they possessed 
 neither importance of subject nor merit of con- 
 struction and style sufficient to preserve them long. 
 The Partisan Leader stirred the hearts of thousands 
 both North and South. When this book first 
 appeared, its title-page bore the following words : 
 "The Partisan Leader, a Tale of the Future, by 
 William Edward Sydney;" and as this indicates, the 
 story is a prophecy dealing with startling events to 
 come. It tells of great national troubles to occur 
 within a few years, of division and of war; and, 
 strange to say, outlines with surprising exactness 
 what really took place in 1861. Naturally such a 
 book was a subject of wide and bitter discussion, 
 and it proved to be so agitating that endeavors were 
 made to suppress it as being a menace to the govern- 
 ment. In 1 86 1, when suspicion reigned on every 
 hand, it was reprinted in the North as A Key to the 
 Disunion Conspiracy, and during the course of the 
 great strife was frequently quoted to prove that a 
 plot for such an uprising had been forming for 
 many, many years. 
 
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 173 
 
 The scene of the story is Virginia, and the point 
 of view naturally is thoroughly Southern. "By a 
 long series of encroachments by the Federal Govern- 
 ment, our federative system is supposed to be 
 destroyed, and a consolidated government, with the 
 forms of a republic and the powers of a monarchy, 
 to be established on its ruins." Here indeed is 
 opportunity for an imaginative student of political 
 science, and Tucker proved to be such a person. That 
 he worked out the scheme logically is proved by 
 successive events ; that he did it in a picturesque and 
 convincing manner the book itself shows. 
 
 Doubtless it is a matter of regret to every writer 
 on literature that the quality, or character of a novel 
 is so difficult to express ; for, unlike the poem or the 
 essay, short extracts showing action, character, or 
 even style, can rarely be given. And so it is with 
 this book which in ante-bellum days so greatly inter- 
 ested the Southern reader. As was the case with 
 many works of fiction in this period, the book was 
 composed after the manner of Cooper; broad char- 
 acterization, quick, intense action, a sweeping man- 
 ner, and an ignoring of artistic details. This was 
 the day of the "big bow-wow strain" of Scott and 
 not of the quiet, softer tones of Jane Austen. Per- 
 haps, then. The Partisan Leader would seem to the 
 modern reader somewhat strained in parts and its 
 characters and actions entirely too heroic and not 
 sufficiently "human" : but at all times, in the dis- 
 cussion of this period, the fact must not be lost sight 
 of that this was a time of intensely bitter feelings 
 and that the perspective was, of necessity, warped 
 and drawn out of all symmetry. It was a story with 
 a warning, and that warning proved to be the fore- 
 runner of a heart-rending reality. 
 
174 John Pendleton Kennedy 
 
 IX 
 
 In the work of John Pendleton Kennedy 
 (1795-1870) and of William Gilmore Simms 
 (1806- 1 870) we find the best Southern novels of 
 the ante-bellum period, and indeed among the best 
 written in America prior to the Civil War. In the 
 writings of both of these men there seem to be a 
 dawning perception of what the novel might be, a 
 freedom from imitation, and a fluency of style not 
 found in previous efforts in the South. Today the 
 fiction of both is still a source of entertainment ; and 
 certain qualities, both from an historical and a 
 dramatic standpoint, will probably make the volumes 
 interesting for generations to come. 
 
 Of the two leaders Kennedy was less admirable 
 as a fighter of adverse circumstances ; but it is very 
 doubtful whether his genius was of 
 John a very much inferior order. He was 
 
 Pendleton born at Baltimore and received a 
 Kennedy good education in that city. As a 
 — youth of eighteen, he entered the 
 
 (1795=1870) American army then engaged in the 
 War of 1 81 2, and at its close, return- 
 ing to his native city, he took up the study of law, 
 and in 1816 began, in a very desultory sort of way, 
 it is true, to practise the profession. But his love 
 for it was small; Hterature enticed him; and from 
 1 81 8 to 1820 we find him engaged with Peter Hoff- 
 man Cruise in editing a periodical entitled The Red 
 Book. From 1820 to 1823 he was a member of the 
 Maryland legislature. Then followed a busy period 
 of literary and political activity, during which he 
 was a member of Congress, Secretary of Navy under 
 Fillmore, editor of several magazines, and one of 
 the founders and trustees of the Peabody Institute. 
 Despite the manifold duties of his life, he found 
 
John Pendleton Kennedy 175 
 
 time to work, both by example and by precept, for 
 the cause of Southern Literature. His early help 
 to Poe and other struggling young writers should 
 ever be held in grateful remembrance, while his own 
 often discouraging endeavors to establish Southern 
 papers and periodicals and to interest the people in 
 their own literature were indeed heroic. 
 
 His own writings are testimony to his zeal for the 
 cause. The subjects in which he took a vital inter- 
 est were many, with the result that the surprisingly 
 large number of essays written by him may still 
 serve as food for reflection to every class of readers. 
 His Life of William Wirt (1849) is a standard 
 today; his political satire. Annals of Quodlibet, 
 aroused thousands of contemporary readers; Mr. 
 Ambrose's Letters, Written during the Civil War, 
 was a keen and effective work. AH that he wrote 
 possessed some mark of genius. But it is through 
 the three novels. Swallow Barn ( 1832), Horse-Shoe 
 Robinson (1835), and Rob of the Bowl (1838) 
 that his memory truly lives. The first of these deals 
 with Virginia and is largely a description of the 
 Virginia farmer of the early twenties; the second 
 tells the story of early Tory ascendency in South 
 Carolina ; while the third shows the struggles of the 
 Catholic settlers of Maryland. All distinctly South- 
 ern, be it observed; and for the very reason that 
 they dealt with subjects thoroughly familiar to their 
 author, they met with well-deserved success. In 
 England they were widely read and were considered 
 by many authors and critics as worthy of much 
 attention. Thackeray, for one, was delighted, and 
 when Kennedy went abroad the two became fast 
 friends. On one occasion the great English novelist 
 invited the American to write a chapter in a novel 
 then being printed, and the result was the thoroughly 
 interesting fourth chapter in the second book of The 
 
176 John Pendleton Kennedy 
 
 Virginians. And Kennedy is not without a read- 
 ing public today. But the number of his admirers 
 is far smaller than it should be ; for the well-drawn 
 pictures of those early days, and the truth and vivid- 
 ness of the historical actions do not fail to make 
 most readable narratives. 
 
 Possessing little of the subtlety of Hawthorne, 
 Kennedy made his characters broad, but distinctly 
 human; and, as types of the rough and ready 
 frontiersman of the time, they appear true to life. 
 The heroes of his imagination are honest, perhaps 
 too frank, and pugnacious to an astonishing degree. 
 Like some of Cooper's figures, they seem to ache 
 for want of a fight. And, yet, back of this virile 
 roughness is the tender and beautiful story of love, 
 while everywhere is a strange mingling of wildness 
 and refinement. 
 
 Most critics now consider Horse-Shoe Robinson 
 the greatest novel written in the South before the 
 war. Centering about the battle of King's Moun- 
 tain, it shows in Horse-Shoe the type of men who 
 won the famous victory and, at the same time, gives 
 that local tone and sentiment which no mere book 
 of history, though written by a master-hand, can 
 ever impart. The final chapter is a description of 
 the battle itself : and here, plainly, is genius. Seldom 
 indeed has a better climax been written by any 
 American; for here the historic, the romantic, and 
 the dramatic merge into a powerful effort. To the 
 lover of Addison and Steele Swallow Barn should 
 appeal with peculiar force; Sir Roger de Coverley 
 seems among us again. Indeed the influence of the 
 eighteenth century essay and novel of manners is 
 strikingly evident. Quaint humor, happy descrip- 
 tions, and the quietness, contentment, and chari- 
 tableness of the old EngHsh knight are here; while 
 the details so noticeable in a peaceful life are por- 
 
John Pendleton Kennedy 177 
 
 trayed with lingering touches. Notice a few lines 
 from a description of the country gentleman : 
 
 "The master of this lordly domain is Frank Meri- 
 wether. He is now in the meridian of life — some- 
 where about forty-five. Good cheer and an easy 
 temper tell well upon him. The first has given 
 him a comfortable, portly figure, and the latter a 
 contemplative turn of mind, which inclines him to 
 be lazy and philosophical. . . . 
 
 "It is pleasant to see him when he is going to ride 
 to the Court House on business occasions. He is 
 then apt to make his appearance in a coat of blue 
 broadcloth, astonishingly glossy, and with an 
 unusual amount of plaited ruffle, strutting through 
 the folds of a Marseilles waistcoat. A worshipful 
 finish is given to this costume by a large straw hat 
 lined with green silk. There is a majestical fulness 
 in his garments which betokens condition in the 
 world, and a heavy bunch of seals, suspended by a 
 chain of gold, jingles as he moves, pronouncing him 
 a man of superfluities. . . . 
 
 "I am "told he keeps the peace as if he commanded 
 a garrison, and administers justice like a Cadi. . 
 
 . . He has some claim to supremacy in this last 
 department ; for during three years he smoked segars 
 in a lawyer's office in Richmond, which enabled 
 him to obtain a bird's-eye view of Blackstone and 
 the Revised Code. Besides this he was a member 
 of a Law Debating Society, which ate oysters once 
 a week in a cellar ; and he wore, in accordance with 
 the usage of the most prominent law students of 
 that day, six cravats, one over the other, and yellow 
 topped boots, by which he was recognized as a blood 
 of the metropolis. Having in this way qualified 
 himself to assert and maintain his rights, he came 
 to his estate, upon his arrival at age, a very model 
 of landed gentleman." 
 
178 John Pendleton Kennedy 
 
 Such was the Virginian of early days. Again, 
 note the beauty of the home-life : 
 
 "It is refreshing to behold how affectionately 
 vain our good hostess is of Frank, and what defer- 
 ence she shows to him in all matters, except those 
 that belong to the home department; for there she 
 is confessedly and without appeal, the paramount 
 power. . . . Frank, in return, is a devout 
 admirer of her accomplishments, and, although he 
 does not pretend to have an ear for music, he is in 
 raptures at her skill on the harpsichord, . . . 
 and he sometimes set her to singing 'The Twins of 
 Latona' and 'Old Towler,' and 'The Rose-Tree in 
 Full Bearing' (she does not study the modern 
 music), for the entertainment of his company. On 
 these occasions, he stands by the instrument and 
 nods his head, as if he comprehended the airs." 
 
 Such portrayals are the strength of great writing. 
 The homely life, the familiar characters, the quaint 
 customs, the unrestrained freedom of environments, 
 the far-reaching forests, the winding roads, and 
 everywhere the tinge of romance — these are sources 
 of power. The stories are not without their faults. 
 They are prolix; they perhaps take too long to 
 unwind the slender cord of their plots; yet how 
 interesting are the many diversions. Here, in fact, 
 is an author who by his genius might have founded 
 in those days before the Great Struggle a strong 
 school of Southern novelists. "Might have founded" 
 are the only words we may use; for with the 
 approach of the mighty conflict, the intellect thrust 
 aside fiction for realities, and the power that might 
 have created romance was needed in the world of 
 facts. In Kennedy, however, we find one who had 
 done his work largely before the actual beginning 
 of that strife, and therefore, the struggle for recog- 
 
William Gilmore Simms 179 
 
 nition was easier; his followers, such as William 
 Gilmore Simms and John Esten Cooke, succeeded 
 in spite of the great upheaval. 
 
 X 
 
 Versatility is one of the bitterest enemies of real 
 greatness. For Genius is composed largely of con- 
 centrated energy. And yet in spite 
 William of the fact that William Gilmore 
 
 Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) was lawyer, 
 
 Simms planter, statesman, editor, novelist, 
 
 — dramatist, critic, biographer, his- 
 
 (1806=1870) torian, and poet, he narrowly missed 
 being great. He deserved that greatly 
 abused phrase, "a self-made man." Shortly after 
 his birth at Charleston, his mother died, and his 
 father being called away to fight the Seminoles, he 
 was left under the care of a loving but very poverty- 
 stricken grandmother. Necessarily his scholastic 
 training was extremely limited, and at an early age 
 he left school to become a clerk in a drug-store. But 
 he was a precocious boy, who, at the age of seven, 
 had written some surprising verse, and, with ambi- 
 tion aroused, he took up the study of law at eighteen, 
 and divided his time between Blackstone and poetic 
 efforts. 
 
 At nineteen he had published his Monody on 
 Pinckney, and by the time he had reached twenty- 
 one, he had given up all thoughts of law and had 
 begun the remarkably productive career that con- 
 tinued until his death in 1870. Volume after volume 
 came forth from his pen ; numerous literary journals 
 were established under his leadership; struggling 
 writers without number received his sympathy and 
 advice ; and to a great extent through his endeavors 
 Charleston became in his day a center of culture. 
 
180 William Gilmore Simms 
 
 "Legare's wit and scholarship," says Margaret J. 
 Preston, "brightened its social circle; Calhoun's 
 deep shadow loomed over it from his plantation at 
 Fort Hill, Gilmore Simms's genial culture broadened 
 its sympathies. The latter was the Maecenas to a 
 band of brilliant youths who used to meet for liter- 
 ary suppers at his beautiful home." At twenty-three 
 he became editor of the Charleston City Gazette, 
 but four years later the venture failed; for Simms 
 had had the boldness to oppose, in a section even then 
 called "the hotbed of secession," the disunion 
 tendencies of the citizens. 
 
 He found himself reduced to poverty, and thus 
 his literary efforts now possessed an additional incen- 
 tive. The rapidity with which he turned out every 
 kind of literature was a matter of wonder. By i860 
 he had written eighteen volumes of poetry and more 
 than sixty volumes of history, criticism, and 
 romance; and yet but one or two of these many 
 efforts sank to the level of mediocrity. Gradually 
 his persistent endeavors lifted him out of his im- 
 poverished state, and when he married, as his second 
 wife, the daughter of a wealthy planter and thus 
 came into possession of the beautiful estate, "Wood- 
 lands," he for a time was relieved from the unre- 
 mitting struggle for the bare necessities of life. He 
 took part in the public movements of his native city 
 and State, served several terms in the legislature, and 
 gave of his talent and means, for many forms of 
 philanthropy. But the dark days of war came; his 
 sympathy was with the South; his beautiful home 
 was almost ruined; and again he found himself in 
 poverty. Yet with the same brave spirit as urged 
 on the indomitable Scott, he wrote more desperately, 
 and for five years after the conflict he continued the 
 arduous labor. Rest came at last on June 11, 1870, 
 and he was buried in Magnolia Cemetery in that city 
 which he loved so much. 
 
William Gilmore Simms 181 
 
 Simms was a man of surprisingly broad culture. 
 Though his knowledge along some lines was rather 
 elemental, owing to his limited opportunities in 
 youth, he was really learned in literature. His edi- 
 tions of classic dramas, with notes, are good, while 
 his literary criticisms and book-reviews show a wide 
 range of reading and a knowledge of the best. And 
 what a great heart was his ! His sympathy seemed 
 boundless, and many a successful writer held him in 
 grateful memory for practical favors in times of 
 distress. Indeed, by his aid to Paul Hamilton Hayne 
 and Henry Timrod, he deserves the loving remem- 
 brance not only of the South but of all America. In 
 magazine work he seemed never to be discouraged, 
 and though periodicals failed with what may truth- 
 fully be called "periodical" regularity, he was ever 
 found willing to devote his time, his energy, and 
 even his means to such endeavors. Few examples 
 of such disinterestedness and sacrificing zeal can 
 be discovered in the history of any literature. 
 
 Simms was a poet before he attempted novel- 
 writing. As we have seen, he published his Monody 
 on the Death of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney when 
 he was but nineteen, and seven years later (1832) 
 his Atalantis^ brought out by Harper's, was one of 
 the most widely discussed poems of the day. In 1829 
 there had appeared his Vision of Cortes, Cain, and 
 Other Poems; the next year The Tricolor, or Three 
 Days of Blood was published ; and thus the stream 
 flowed on with great regularity until 1867, when he 
 brought out War Poetry of the South. A collective 
 edition appeared in 1864, and from time to time, 
 until death came, he added stanzas to his already 
 immense quantity of verse. 
 
 His poetry is seldom without a distinct element of 
 beauty. Lacking, for the most part, in profound 
 thought and deep passion, it has a facile vigor of 
 
182 William Gilmore Simms 
 
 expression and an ever-present seriousness of pur- 
 pose. Frequently the note of sadness is present. 
 
 "Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone 
 Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone. 
 The hope most precious is the soonest lost. 
 The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost. 
 Are not all short-lived things the loveliest? 
 And like the pale star, shooting down the sky, 
 Look they not even brightest, as they fly 
 From the lone sphere they blest?" 
 
 His was an aptitude for many moods and forms of 
 verse. In The Lost Pleiad, from which the above 
 lines are taken, we find the lingering music that made 
 his work so often an artistic delight; yet note the 
 swinging vigor of The Swamp Fox: 
 
 "We follow where the Swamp Fox guides, 
 
 His friends and merry men are we ; 
 And when the troop of Tarleton rides, 
 
 We burrow in the cypress tree. 
 The turfy hammock is our bed. 
 
 Our home is in the red deer's den. 
 Our roof the tree-top overhead; 
 
 For we are wild and hunted men." 
 
 The true poetic qualities, romance, mystery, and 
 wonder, are never lacking. Whether the subject be 
 the grapevine swing of his childhood, 
 
 "Lithe and long as the serpent train. 
 Springing and clinging from tree to tree, 
 
 Now darting upward, now down again. 
 With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see." 
 
 or the poet's visions of the mysteries that 
 
 "Flash forever. 
 In evening shades, these glimpses strange and sweet, 
 They fill his heart betimes, — ^they leave him never. 
 And haunt his steps with sounds of falling feet." 
 
 these three characteristics just mentioned lend an 
 additional charm. But the profound depths of 
 
William Gilmore Simms 183 
 
 thought and passion are not reached by Simms. 
 True, he at times utters thoughts not unworthy of 
 the great masters, as when he says, 
 
 "This the true sign of ruin to a race — 
 
 It undertakes no march, and day by day, 
 Drowses in camp, or, with the laggard's pace, 
 
 Walks sentry o'er possessions that decay ; 
 
 Destined, with sensible waste, to fleet away; — 
 For the first secret of continued power 
 
 Is the continued conquest; — all our sway 
 Hath surety in the uses of the hour ; 
 If that we waste, in vain walled town and lofty bower." 
 
 But such examples of depth are entirely too few to 
 entitle him to the name of a great poet. Mere skill 
 and music do not make one; mighty, soul-arousing 
 themes, thoughts, and emotions are necessary; and 
 these were not often within the scope of Simms. As 
 a poet, therefore, he probably is not destined to 
 possess permanent fame. 
 
 It is as a novelist that the man's power is best 
 shown. Though his work is often hasty, unpolished, 
 and sometimes inexcusably careless, the strength of 
 his imagination and the easy vigor of his expression 
 save the multitude of his stories from weakness and 
 imitativeness. "He possessed immense fertility, a 
 vivid imagination, a true realistic handling of what- 
 ever he touched." Frequently he has been spoken 
 of as "the Cooper of the South"; but the title is 
 hardly fair to Simms ; for, though not such a master 
 of plot and action as that inventive Northerner, he 
 greatly surpassed Cooper in culture, knowledge of 
 literature, broadness of view, and poetic sentiment. 
 Yet, without doubt, he was a disciple of Cooper. 
 All of his novels have the same rapidity and vigor 
 of plot, the same romance and excitement, the same 
 love of the wild woods, the Indian, the chase, and 
 the hair-breadth escape. The most noted of his 
 fictions deal indeed with somewhat the same period 
 
184 William Gilmore Simms 
 
 in American history: The Yemassee, telling of 
 early colonial days; The Partisan, Mellichampe, 
 and Katharine Walton, dealing with the time of the 
 Revolution; Eutaw, The Scout, Forayers, and 
 Woodcraft, having their actions in the last years 
 of the eighteenth century ; and Wigwam and Cabin, 
 showing the frontier life of the opening days of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 In all of these Simms shows that he can tell a 
 story well. Compared with the high literary polish, 
 the sparseness of details in producing an effect, and 
 the accurate construction of plot in more modern 
 fiction, these novels may seem prolix and loose; but 
 despite the diffusiveness of words, there is a saving 
 virility and a sweep of action, compelling admira- 
 tion. There is many an exciting movement in these 
 old-time stories. Simms uses the same tricks of 
 the trade as Scott and Cooper, — ^the long hours of 
 waiting, the presence of death, the hidden paths, the 
 apathy brought on by despair, the rescue party, and 
 the many other devices that make the reader hold 
 his breath and wonder how it all will end. But 
 unlike Cooper, he depicts woman as a being of some 
 strength and spirit. They sometimes fight in the 
 battles; and by their ingenuity perform important 
 work. For instance, in The Yemassee, a soldier's 
 wife, by holding an Indian poised in a high window 
 in such a manner that the other savages cannot enter 
 without killing him, saves all her companions. And 
 the love affairs of the heroes and heroines, as por- 
 trayed by Simms, are more natural and more "weakly 
 human" than in Cooper. 
 
 Again, Simms can create an atmosphere and a 
 background in a most effective manner. Preserving 
 the traditions of his native State in a beautiful form, 
 he does no less for the noble scenery of the South- 
 east. He can take in at one sweep the many wonders 
 
Poetry 185 
 
 in the vast wilderness of an unexplored continent, 
 and, seizing upon the salient points, he preserves in 
 the strange scene much of its rugged grandeur. 
 Portions of his Guy Rivers, translated into German, 
 were praised abroad as the finest descriptions of 
 American scenery ever written ; and yet Guy Rivers 
 is by no means the greatest of his novels. "A 
 prophet is not without honor save in his own 
 country." 
 
 Versatile, enthusiastic, industrious, interested in 
 all human affairs, and acquainted with the best in 
 literature and art, Simms knew what should be 
 written, but had not the patience to labor for perfec- 
 tion. Haste and slovenliness too often appeared 
 where glittering, polished, artistic effects might 
 have made a masterpiece. But despite his many 
 defects, we have in him the most gifted man of 
 letters, save Poe, in the ante-bellum South. 
 
 And with Simms we must leave, for a time, the 
 fiction writers of the South. In the next period we 
 shall find a few worthy novelists, but the roar of 
 cannon and the moan of the dying suddenly silenced 
 the voices of many, and when the strife was past, 
 a seemingly ruined country offered them but poor 
 inducements for imaginative flights. Yet, we shall 
 find some rising from the ashes and telling in a 
 sadder yet, perhaps, nobler tone, the stories of 
 struggles and self-victories. 
 
 POETRY 
 
 Their name is legion — these verse-writers of the 
 South ; but of true poets, how few ! For the writing 
 of poetry has rarely been considered a very serious 
 business. Rather, it has been regarded as Paul 
 Hamilton Hayne declared all literary efforts among 
 Southerners have been regarded, as "the choice 
 
186 Poetry 
 
 recreation of gentlemen, as something fair and good, 
 to be courted in a dainty amateur fashion." In con- 
 sequence, during the ante-bellum period, the efforts, 
 with only a few exceptions, had not the sustained 
 character, the deep thought, the great passion of 
 masterpieces. Of fairly good singers there were 
 many ; but the few who were of genuine power stood 
 isolated, each a distinct personality, possessing little 
 in common with any other poet or poets. The 
 poetry of a theory or dogma, then, gained no head- 
 way in the South; none of the singers climbed 
 Parnassus, 
 
 "With a whole bale of isms tied together with rime." 
 
 Theirs is a poetry of emotions, and love is, for the 
 most part, the inspiring theme. 
 
 Technically the poetry of these writers is good, 
 in many cases surprisingly good, and the music and 
 rhythm and general artistic tone compare well with 
 the best written in America. For, of course, being 
 a poetry of emotion, it is largely lyric verse; and 
 the "inevitable" study of the ancient classics had 
 taught extreme carefulness in the choice of words 
 and sentiments. Therefore we shall find amidst a 
 fair amount of rubbish not a few dainty gems. 
 Toward the close of this period the more sincere 
 writers began to feel deeply the shadow cast upon 
 their section and to note with dread the approach of 
 war, and, as a result of the sudden outburst of 
 political and sectional fervor, there came a number 
 of thrilling and effective lyrics. But the earlier verse 
 has little of this or any other form of vigorous pur- 
 pose. Its reason for existence lies in its portrayal 
 of a momentary emotion or in its appeal to the sense 
 of melody. 
 
 However lacking in certain qualities these efforts 
 may have been, they were all thoroughly American, 
 
Plantation Melodies 187 
 
 and the majority thoroughly Southern in their gen- 
 eral tone and flavor. There were few if any refer- 
 ences to the nightingale and other creatures unknown 
 to America; but, on the other hand, the mocking- 
 bird, the whippoorwill, the orange tree, the palmetto 
 and the pine received due homage. The greater 
 poets were intense lovers of Nature, and, like that 
 Nature which the luxuriant South knows, their 
 poems possess a sense of warmth, freshness, and 
 color. Considering the discouraging circumstances, 
 the poetry of the Southern States became all that 
 could be expected. In any land it has ever been 
 considered folly to attempt to live by poetry ; but in 
 the South it was more than folly. The section had 
 no great publishing houses; the scattered reading 
 population, contented in its conservatism, spent what 
 time it could spare from law and politics, on the older 
 classics ; and no cult nor school called to its aid the 
 singers of the land. Seeing but dimly the perilous 
 lassitude into which their customs and institutions 
 had beguiled them, the people drifted on toward the 
 whirlpool of war. Yet, genius in some measure 
 compelled opportunity, and the spirit of song at least 
 existed, if it did not thrive. A few strong voices 
 sang with beauty, showing what music the folk might 
 have produced in better days. 
 
 Doubtless the most spontaneous outburst of song 
 known to modern days is found in the plantation 
 melodies of the American negro. 
 Plantation Unfortunately for our poetry at least. 
 Melodies the United States sprang into exist- 
 ence, a civilized, intelligent, prosaic 
 nation, almost entirely devoid of the national body 
 of folk-lore which every great European people con- 
 
188 Plantation Melodies 
 
 siders a priceless treasure of antiquity. And in the 
 years which have followed that sudden appearance 
 of a new commonwealth there have been among the 
 whites — with the possible exception of a few ballads 
 found among the mountaineers of Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, and North Carolina — ^no melodies unique 
 and springing from the people. The conditions that 
 led to an Iliad, a Beowulf, a Nibelungen Lied, a Song 
 of Roland, an Arthurian Legend or a Robin Hood 
 Ballad have never been present to bring forth a song 
 of America's birth and childhood. Of all the 
 builders of the nation the negro alone has created a 
 species of lyric verse that all the world may recognize 
 as a distinctly American production. 
 
 The black man is undoubtedly the best natural 
 musician and orator among modern peoples. Under 
 the stress of religious emotion the most illiterate of 
 their preachers may startle the listener by a won- 
 derful power in word-painting, while their ear for 
 music is so true as to enable them to form without a 
 moment's hesitation correct harmonies for almost 
 any melody. Song is to them the very soul of life ; 
 it is an ever-present companion ; it is a helper in toil, 
 a pastime in idleness, a comforter in times of sorrow. 
 Sometimes amidst the city's hurrying throng a long 
 line of negroes may be seen silently and doggedly 
 working on the track or in the trench. Suddenly 
 above the multitudinous sounds of the quivering 
 street there will burst forth a strange great chord 
 like the peal of a mighty organ ; scores take it up, a 
 hundred, five hundred, all along the far-stretched line 
 of bended backs; and, as the picks clink and the 
 shovels grate, a chorus is lifted that carries the soul 
 far away from the hot walls and echoing pavements. 
 How strange, how weird is that harmony, so 
 unmodern, so redolent of an age long past ! And 
 down on the gray, sweltering dock and far away at 
 
Plantation Melodies 18S 
 
 the cabin door by the cotton-field, the same melodies 
 are arising — the folk-songs of a people united by 
 their love of music. Suddenly, while the soul is in 
 the midst of such meditations, the chorus ceases, and 
 once more the listening ear hears among the babel of 
 sounds, the clink of the picks and the grating of the 
 shovels. 
 
 Perhaps the song was some mournful refrain bear- 
 ing the memories of a pagan religion of fear : 
 
 "I am sinking, 
 
 I am sinking, 
 
 I am sinking 
 Down in death! 
 
 Lord have mercy, 
 
 Lord have mercy, 
 
 Lord have mercy 
 On my soul I" 
 
 Perhaps it was the more triumphant theme of Rol 
 Jordan, Roll: 
 
 "My bruddah sitting on de tree of life 
 An' he hyeah when Jordan roll. 
 Roll, Jordan, 
 
 Roll, Jordan, i 
 
 Roll, Jordan, roll : 
 Oh, march de angel march, 
 O my soul, rise in Heaven, Lord, 
 For to hyeah when Jordan roll !" 
 
 Again, it may have been that crooning lyric, Swing 
 Low, Sweet Chariot, with its drawn-out refrain : 
 
 "Oh, de good ole chariot swing so low, 
 
 I don't want to leave me behine, 
 
 Oh, swing low, sweet chariot. 
 
 Swing low, sweet chariot, 
 
 I don't want to leave me behine." 
 
 But whatever the song, there is ever a quaintness, 
 a sense of something not belonging to this age and 
 place, — a. something that fills the unfamiliar listener 
 
190 Plantation Melo.dies 
 
 with an emotion of pity. In the words, indeed, the 
 melody may be a reckless, rollicking one, such as the 
 old Savannah Freeman's Song: 
 
 "Heave away, heave away : 
 I'd rathah court a yellow gal than work fah Henry Clay : 
 Heave away, heave away ! 
 
 Yellow gal, I want to go, 
 I'd rathah court a yellow gal than work fah Henry Clay!" 
 
 But the minor key so suggestive of mourning, and 
 the weird ending, ceasing, as it always does, on just 
 the note least expected and thus causing us to wait 
 involuntarily for the next, — these turn every song 
 into a thing of strange pathos. 
 
 However, the theme is seldom of such a rollicking 
 nature as that in the example just given. Religion 
 has been the most fascinating subject that ever held 
 the attention of the black man ; and to the ante-bellum 
 negro, especially, it constituted the ruling passion of 
 life. The revival, the "protracted meeting," the 
 soul-terrifying conviction of sin, the shouting con- 
 version, and the religious trance were to him, never 
 shams and hypocrisies, but rapturous realities. But 
 even here sadness prevails : 
 
 "Bending knees aching, body racked with pain, 
 I wish I was a chile of God, I'd git home bimeby ! 
 
 Keep praying, I do believe, 
 We're a long time wagging o'er de crossing; 
 
 Keep praying, I do believe, 
 We'll git home to heaven bimeby!" 
 
 Again, notice the cheerful conception of death in 
 such lines as these : 
 
 "No mo' peck of corn fah me, 
 No mo' ; no mo' ; 
 No mo' peck of corn fah me, 
 Many thousand go ! 
 
 "No mo' auction-block fah me, 
 No mo' ; no mo' ; 
 No mo' auction-block fah me. 
 Many thousand go !" ( 
 
Plantation Melodies 191 
 
 And what longing for Heaven — the old-time 
 bejeweled, glittering, material Heaven — found 
 expression in these rude chants ! As with all primi- 
 tive races, the Scriptural figures of speech are taken 
 literally, and the home over yonder is a place of 
 surprising wealth. 
 
 "I ain't been thah, 
 
 But I've been tole 
 (Histe the window, let the dove come in!) 
 
 The gates am pearl, 
 
 The streets am gole, 
 (Histe the window, let the dove come in!)" 
 
 Heaven is also a land of meetings of eternal union 
 with loved ones : 
 
 "I have a fathah ovah yondah, 
 I have a fathah ovah yondah, 
 I have a fathah ovah yondah, 
 
 Way ovah in de promise' Ian' ! 
 Bimeby I'll go to see him, 
 Bimeby I'll go to see him, 
 Bimeby I'll go to see him, 
 
 Way ovah thah I" 
 
 And thus the family death-record continues until 
 the mother, sisters, brothers, wives, sons, daughters, 
 and sometimes even the nephews and cousins have 
 been remembered aloud. 
 
 Judgment Day was the inexhaustible subject of the 
 ante-bellum negro exhorter, and, once under its influ- 
 ence, his imagination ran riot. The thunder of 
 Gabriel's trumpet resounded ; the lightning flashed ; 
 the moon and the stars turned to blood ; the sun went 
 out ; the earth shriveled as a parchment ; and the dead 
 of all ages arose and walked in their funeral shrouds. 
 In all seriousness some of the sermons on this subject 
 as preached by negroes even of the twentieth century 
 are so startlingly vivid as to compel sympathy with 
 the groaning and hysterical audience. In speaking 
 thus of the sermons, we likewise describe the songs 
 of resurrection. 
 
192 Plantation Melodies 
 
 "Gabriel, blow youah trumpet, 
 Lord, how loud will I blow it? 
 Loud as seven peals of thundah, 
 Wake de sleeping nations. 
 Den you see po' sinnahs rising, 
 See de dry bones a-creeping, 
 
 In dat great gitting-up morning. 
 
 Fare you well ! Fare you well !" 
 
 It is a time of tumult. Phrases must express the 
 meaning of whole sentences : 
 
 "In de morning, 
 In de morning, 
 Chil'en ? Yes, my Lord ! 
 Don't you hyeah de trumpet sound ? 
 If I had a-died when I was young, 
 I nevah would had de race fah to run. 
 Don't you hyeah de trumpet sound ?" 
 
 Such were the melodies born of slavery. In them 
 are the heart-cries of a nation living under a cloud, 
 the vague, half-conscious gropings for something 
 unattained. The note of sadness is sincere. Here 
 is indeed little of the character found in the counter- 
 feit "coon-song" so popular in these first years of the 
 twentieth century ; the two are not of the same spirit. 
 Nor are the beautiful lyrics, Suwanee Ribber, Old 
 Kentucky Home, and others composed through the 
 art of the white man, in the same class as the real 
 plantation songs. In their half-expressed thoughts, 
 their minor keys, their swaying rhythm, and their 
 unexpected endings, they are absolutely unique ; they 
 defy imitation; and musical instruments founded 
 upon the prevailing tonic scale cannot repeat their 
 harmonies. They seem destined, therefore, to perish 
 with their quaint and melodious singers. In them 
 America has had a rich but now, alas, surely vanish- 
 ing treasure. 
 
John Shaw 193 
 
 II 
 
 At the very beginning of this period (1810) there 
 appeared a little volume entitled simply Poems. The 
 author, Dr. John Shaw (1778- 
 John Shaw 1809), had died just a few months 
 — before; else it is probable that these 
 
 (1778=1809) verses would never have been pub- 
 lished. For Shaw was an extremely 
 modest man, busy with his professional work, and 
 the poetry that he composed in his moments of 
 recreation, he would never, under any pretext, send 
 forth for publication. And, yet, though Duyckinck 
 thinks that "they are of the average order of excel- 
 lence," some few of them have a most happy senti- 
 ment and a more than excellent lyric quality. 
 
 Concerning Shaw little is now known. He was 
 born at Annapolis, Maryland, studied at St. John's 
 College in that city, and took a course in medicine 
 at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1798 he was 
 a surgeon on the United States fleet off the coast of 
 Algiers, and three years later we find him again 
 taking a course in medicine, this time at the Univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh. He went to Baltimore in 1805, 
 and there during the next three years gained local 
 fame not only as a highly successful physician, but 
 as a disinterested public citizen. And yet, turning 
 from the matter-of-fact, practical affairs in which 
 his time was so fully occupied, he found opportunity 
 to write such dainty verses as those in his well-known 
 Song. 
 
 "Who has robbed the ocean cave, 
 
 To tinge thy lips with coral hue ? 
 Who from India's distant wave 
 
 For thee those pearly treasures drew? 
 Who from yonder orient sky, 
 Stole the morning of thine eye ? 
 
194 William Munford 
 
 "But one charm remains behind, 
 
 Which mute earth can ne'er impart : 
 Nor in ocean wilt thou find, 
 Nor in the circling air, a heart. 
 Fairest : wouldst thou perfect be. 
 Take, oh take that heart from me.'' 
 
 In the Sleighing Song we find the same melodious 
 expression and daintiness of sentiment : 
 
 "When calm is the night, and the stars shine bright, 
 The sleigh glides smooth and cheerily; 
 
 And mirth and jest abound. 
 
 While all is still around, 
 Save the horses' trampling sound 
 And the horse-bells tinkling merrily." 
 
 In Shaw this period of Southern poetry had a 
 fairly auspicious opening. But the same causes that 
 restrained him in his poetic efforts — lack of serious 
 purpose and failure to consider poetry worthy of 
 life-long consecration, restrained many of his 
 followers, and the amateur spirit, a passive but none 
 the less destructive enemy of great poetry, continued 
 to hold back the singers from lofty heights of passion. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Another careful and melodious, if not inspired, 
 poet of the earliest days of the period was William 
 Munford (1775-1825). His father, 
 William Robert Munford, had been something 
 
 Munford of an author, having written two 
 
 — dramatic compositions, The Candidate 
 
 (1775=1825) and The Patriots, and several Revolu- 
 tionary songs; and the boy was 
 fortunate in possessing as a father such a lover of 
 literature. Being a native of Virginia, he naturally 
 became a student at William and Mary College, and. 
 after graduating, just as naturally studied law and 
 drifted into politics. He became a member of the 
 
William Munford 195 
 
 Virginia House of Delegates, was a State senator 
 from 1 80 1 to 1808, and shortly afterwards obtained 
 the clerkship of the House of Delegates and held 
 it during the remainder of his life. For many years 
 he was also reporter of the decisions of the Supreme 
 Court of Appeals in Virginia and had as one of his 
 duties the dry and arduous task of preparing each 
 year the bulky volumes of these decisions. 
 
 Such is the prosaic history of the "bread and 
 butter" phase of his life, and the biography of his 
 intellectual and aesthetic life is just as uneventful. 
 From time to time he wrote verse, but he made no 
 effort to give it publicity ; and his last work, a com- 
 position which in some parts indeed approaches 
 greatness, was not published until more than twenty 
 years after his death. This is his blank verse trans- 
 lation of the Iliad (1825), brought out in book form 
 in 1846. Here is no mere passing of words from 
 one language to another; the poetry seems original 
 and spontaneous. Vigor, picturesqueness, vividness 
 of description are obtained by use of an idiomatic 
 English that smacks not at all of Hellenic effects. 
 Note the portions dealing with the triumph of 
 Hector; there is no strain, no affectation; only the 
 rugged force of the original : 
 
 "Hector seized 
 And bore a stone which stood before the gates, 
 Heavy and craggy, pointed sharp at top, 
 Which not two men, though stoutest of the race 
 Earth now sustains, could without toil have moved 
 By levers from the ground and heaved its mass 
 Into a wagon ; yet did singly he 
 Toss it with ease, so light Saturnian Jove 
 Made it to him ! For as a shepherd brings 
 In one hand joyfully, a ram's rich fleece. 
 And feels but small the weight, so Hector bore 
 That rock enormous towards the lofty gates. 
 Strong-framed, with double valves, of panels thick. 
 Compact and firm, two iron bars within 
 Transverse secured them, fastened by a bolt, 
 He near them took his stand, with legs astride, 
 
196 Francis Scott Key 
 
 That not in vain that weapon should be thrown ; 
 Then smote them in the midst with all his strength, 
 And broke both hinges. Thundering on, the stone. 
 With force o'erwhelming, fell within the wall. 
 Loud rang the yielding gates, asunder riven, 
 Nor could the bars retain them ; flew the planks 
 In splintered fragments scattered every way. 
 Into the pass illustrious Hector leaped 1" 
 
 Lines of considerable power, all must admit, and 
 yet the people of the South allowed a translator of 
 such artistic ability to pass practically unknown and 
 finally to sink almost into oblivion. The New 
 England States have nursed genius of much less 
 promise and gained treasures. But comparisons, it 
 is said, are odious. 
 
 IV 
 
 Occasionally it happens that fame of lasting 
 character comes to a man through one small literary 
 
 production. The writing of America 
 
 Francis raised the commonplace name of 
 
 Scott Key its author, Smith, to a permanent 
 
 — eminence. Home, Sweet Home will 
 
 (1780=1843) ever keep the name, John Howard 
 
 Payne, fresh ; The Old Oaken Bucket 
 is sufficient to lift Woodworth from oblivion ; Dixie 
 has saved Daniel Emmett from a like fate ; and Hail 
 Columbia will be remembered long after everything 
 else that Joseph Hopkinson wrote has been forgotten. 
 It is so with Francis Scott Key (1780-1843). 
 Bom in Frederick county, Maryland, he was 
 educated at St. John's College, Annapolis, became a 
 lawyer, secured the office of attorney for the District 
 of Columbia, and, but for one small accident, might 
 have served his day of quiet industry and passed out 
 of the memory of men. An unforeseen delay of a 
 few hours made him famous. 
 
Francis Scott Key 197 
 
 It happened that at the attack on Fort McHenry 
 in Baltimore Harbor (1814), Key went on board a 
 British vessel to arrange for an exchange of pris- 
 oners ; and there, in the transaction of business, night 
 came upon him unawares. The attack was soon to 
 begin, and it was considered expedient for the 
 American to remain on board. All that long night 
 the battle waged and amid the smoke and turmoil 
 Key strove in vain to discover how the tide of fortune 
 was moving. Hour after hour passed, and still no 
 hint as to whether friend or enemy was conqueror. 
 But morning came, and there, high above the fort, 
 waved the American flag. Key was thrilled with 
 patriotic joy. Seizing an old envelope, he wrote 
 that oft-sung question : 
 
 "Oh ! say can you see by the dawn's early light, 
 
 What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, 
 Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of 
 the fight. 
 O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?" 
 
 Under the overwhelming impulse of the moment, 
 the other lines quickly followed, and thus one of the 
 noblest of America's patriotic songs was written. 
 Francis Scott Key wrote other poems; in fact, a 
 volume of rather pretentious size, with an introduc- 
 tion by Chief Justice Taney, was published in 1857; 
 but the poet wrote but one great song. It is 
 sufficient. He who creates one lyric that a nation 
 sings into its very soul, has done a glorious life-work. 
 
 / 
 V 
 
 It is easy to see that from such writers as these 
 a great poetry could not arise. Literature was not 
 a serious enough business with them; it was not a 
 life-directing force ; it was too often a pleasant means 
 of exhibiting culture. That a man might devote 
 
198 William Maxwell 
 
 years to the production of a majestic epic, as Milton 
 did, or to the Tennysonian tasii of retelling a nation's 
 legends or to probing deep into the motives of a 
 man's deeds, as Browning sought to do, was a con- 
 ception of a life-work acknowledged as noble, but 
 yet not possessing sufficient charm to attract the 
 amateur verse-writer of the South. 
 
 We have another example of this kind of poet in 
 William Maxwell, lawyer, educator, editor, and 
 verse-writer. He was born at Nor- 
 William folk, Virginia, in 1784, was educated 
 
 Maxwell at Yale, and, not having the proper 
 
 — tendency toward medicine or theology, 
 
 (1784-1857) necessarily became a lawyer. Follow- 
 ing the usual course of a successful 
 Virginia lawyer of that day, he became in time a 
 member of the Virginia legislature. From 1838 to 
 1844 he was president of Hampden-Sidney College, 
 and for several years was editor of the Virginia 
 Historical Register. He died at Richmond in 1857. 
 
 Such, with a change in the location, might be the 
 biography of many a Southern writer of ante-bellum 
 days ; and of a similar character likely would be the 
 literary productions of the many. For in Maxwell's 
 poems we find the neatness, the conciseness, the 
 daintiness that are found to more or less extent in 
 the magazine verse of the opening years of the 
 twentieth century. To Anne is a good example : 
 
 "How many kisses do I ask? 
 Now you set me to my task. 
 First, sweet Anne, will you tell me 
 How many waves are in the sea? 
 How many stars are in the sky? 
 How many lovers you make sigh? 
 How many sands are on the shore? 
 I shall want just one kiss more." 
 
Richard Dabney 199, 
 
 Another typical specimen is To a Fair Lady: 
 
 "Fairest, mourn not for thy charms, 
 Circled by no lover's arms, 
 While inferior belles you see 
 Pick up husbands merrily." 
 
 Need we give the remainder of the selection? 
 Such verse is not without entertaining powers ; it is 
 just what one wishes for an idle hour; and when 
 these things are said all is said. It lacks the pro- 
 found seriousness of great poetry. Often indeed 
 we may be obliged, in justice, to use the same words 
 concerning poems to follow. 
 
 VI 
 
 In the works of Richard Dabney (1787-1825), 
 however, we have a notable exception. Here is 
 
 something of real genius, — a quality 
 
 Richard often surprising in its excellence, a 
 
 Dabney general up-lift of tone, bespeaking 
 
 — a genuine poetic temperament. He, 
 
 (1787=1825) too, was a Virginian, having been 
 
 born of a family very important in 
 the intellectual history of that State ; but owing to 
 the fact that there were twelve children in the house- 
 hold, the boy did not have those early educational 
 advantages which a member of such a family would 
 be supposed to possess. However, at sixteen, he 
 began the study of the classics, and read with such 
 zeal and understanding that before he had reached 
 manhood he was considered a very good instructor 
 in such subjects. In his twenty-third year, at the 
 very time when his brilliant intellect was gaining 
 recognition, his whole life was blasted by injuries 
 received in the burning of a Richmond theatre ; and 
 from this time until his death he was a being devoid 
 of determined effort, and utterly unfit to cope with 
 the world. He took opium to relieve his suffering. 
 
200 Richard Dabney 
 
 and became a slave to the drug. In his despair he 
 drowned care in drink and during the last years of 
 his life was scarcely ever entirely sober. 
 
 For a time he worked in Philadelphia and while 
 there is thought to have written the greater part of 
 The Olive Branch; or Faults on Both Sides, a satire 
 showing the defects of both Federalists and Repub- 
 licans. He at length returned to his birthplace, and 
 there, in his efforts to teach, divided his time rather 
 equally between the school-house, the inn, and his 
 books. Thus passed the remaining years of his life. 
 
 But we do not study a poet because of his life ; we 
 study him because he has said something supremely 
 well. From this point of view Richard Dabney is 
 worthy of much notice. For, disappointing and 
 desolate as was his mere existence, his works are 
 deserving of a wider reading than they are now 
 receiving. His first volume, Poems Original and 
 Translated, was published at Richmond in 1812 ; and, 
 although the book contained meritorious work, it 
 failed so dismally of popularity that Dabney endeav- 
 ored to suppress it. But, in 1815, he published at 
 Philadelphia an enlarged edition showing such 
 scholarship and such ability in artistic expression 
 that it compelled attention. The poems indicated a 
 proficiency in Latin, Greek, and Italian ; for in these 
 pages Euripides, Sappho, Seneca, Petrarch, and 
 others spoke with a vigor rather rare in translations. 
 
 Dabney seems to have been imbued with the spirit 
 of the ancient classic literature, particularly with the 
 spirit of the shorter poems of the more "human" of 
 the early writers. In An Epigram Imitated from 
 Archias, for instance, this love and understanding 
 and power of entering into the spirit of an author 
 may be discerned : 
 
 "Life, faithless and treach'rous, is forever presenting 
 
 To our view flying phantoms we never can gain ; 
 Life, cruel and tasteless, is forever presenting 
 All our joys, and involving our pleasures in pain. 
 
Richard Henry Wilde 201 
 
 "Death, kind and consoling, comes calmly and lightly. 
 The balm of all sorrow, the cure of all ill ; 
 
 And after a pang, that but thrills o'er us slightly. 
 All then becomes tranquil, all then becomes still." 
 
 As an original poet, he shows not a little of the 
 classical carefulness and finish. Note the closing 
 lines of Youth and Age: 
 
 "Its gentle beams on man's last days, 
 The Hesperus of life displays : 
 When all of passion's mid-day heat 
 Within the breast forgets to beat ; 
 When calm and smooth our minutes glide 
 Along life's tranquillizing tide. 
 It points with slow, receding light 
 To the sweet rest of silent night ; 
 And tells, when life's vain schemes shall end; 
 Thus will its closing light descend. 
 And as the eve star seeks the wave, 
 Thus gently reach the quiet grave." 
 
 What Richard Dabney might have done had a 
 noble manner of living been his, must remain merely 
 a matter of conjecture; but the productions of his 
 limited, restless, and dissipated days are full of 
 promise of what might have been. Of all the 
 Southern poets before the Civil War, a very few 
 surpassed him in a conception of what constitutes 
 true poetry and in the ability to write finished, elegant 
 verse. 
 
 VII 
 
 A poet possessing less genius but more fame than 
 the unfortunate Dabney was Richard Henry 
 
 Wilde (1789- 1847). It was by the 
 Richard merest chance that he came to be 
 
 Henry classed among American writers, or 
 
 Wilde among Americans at all; for he was 
 
 — born at Dublin, Ireland, and spent 
 
 (1789=1847) the first eight years of his life in that 
 
 city. But his father was a believer in 
 Irish liberty and during the troublesome days of 
 
202 Richard Henry Wilde 
 
 1797 expressed his opinions so openly that he was 
 compelled to give up his business enterprises and 
 hasten, with his family, to America. Going to 
 Baltimore, the father there struggled with adversi- 
 ties for five years and then died, leaving his family 
 almost destitute. The son found work in a dry- 
 goods store in Augusta, Georgia, and in time, having 
 prospered, he established a business of his own, and 
 brought his mother to that city. That mother was 
 an inspiration to the boy. She was well educated, 
 a lover of literature, and, in an unambitious way, 
 something of a poet. During the seven years of the 
 boy's life as a store-keeper, she constantly encouraged 
 him to strive for something higher ; and, fortunately, 
 that higher ideal was to be an educated man. He 
 studied intensely and read widely. At eighteen he 
 began a course in law; at twenty (1809) he was 
 admitted to the bar. The nobility of his character 
 is shown in the fact that he went to another county 
 to take the examination, lest a possible failure might 
 distress his mother. His health now began to fail, 
 and he was obliged to give up his arduous study and 
 seek recreation more extensively in social life. But 
 his energetic spirit saved him from idleness. He 
 entered politics, became Attorney-General of the 
 State, was a member of the House of Representa- 
 tives, and at the age of twenty-five was elected a 
 member of Congress. This office he held, with but 
 one exception, until 1834; but in that year, having 
 become an opponent of Jackson's, he was defeated 
 and was no longer a power in politics. 
 
 But his loss as a statesman was his gain as a 
 writer. For, soon after his defeat, he went abroad 
 and spent the greater part of the next seven years 
 in southern Europe. During much of this time he 
 resided at Florence, and there it was that he became 
 
Richard Henry Wilde 203 
 
 intensely interested in the illustrious Italian poet, 
 Tasso. A great deal has been written concerning 
 the strange life of that eccentric man, and Wilde, 
 having entered zealously into the subject, collected 
 most valuable material in his two-volume work, 
 Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, 
 Madness, and Imprisonment of Tasso. Another act 
 of his, which should have brought upon him the 
 blessing of all Italy, was his recovery of the only 
 portrait of Dante. The picture had been painted 
 upon a wall, but for generations ignorant owners 
 had repeatedly whitewashed the place until no trace 
 of the likeness was visible. In his studies Wilde 
 noted that once upon a time such a painting had been 
 executed and, by careful removal of the layers of 
 lime, he uncovered the treasure. It was during these 
 years that he wrote a Life of Dante — which has not 
 been published, however — and collected material for 
 his essay on Petrarch. During all these years, also, 
 he had been writing original or translated poems, 
 and by the close of the period of foreign travel 
 (1840) his name as an author was fairly well 
 established. 
 
 Shortly after his return to America, he removed 
 to New Orleans. He established there a large prac- 
 tice, and at the same time held the professorship of 
 Constitutional Law in the University of Louisiana. 
 He died of yellow fever, September 10, 1847, and 
 his body was taken back to his Georgia home near 
 Augusta and buried beside that of his little son. In 
 later years the Hayne Society, a literary club of 
 Augusta, removed the remains to Oakland Cemetery 
 near the city, and there he now sleeps. 
 
 Personally he was an attractive man. Tall and 
 graceful, with bright eyes and long black hair, he 
 was a man to command attention immediately. And 
 a closer acquaintance but heightened admiration; 
 
204 Richard Henry Wilde 
 
 for he seemed ever good-natured, quick, brilliant, 
 willing to take and give repartee. Gentle in his 
 nature, he made numerous friends and few enemies. 
 As a writer, his fame rests largely on his work deal- 
 ing with Tasso and on one poem, My Life Is Like the 
 Summer Rose. Other verses by him are good, some 
 few excellent, but none of them have the music and 
 humanness of the one mentioned. He began an 
 epic based on adventures that his brother experienced 
 in Florida ; but all that remains of the intended work 
 is this short poem of six stanzas. Only by mischance 
 and distinctly against his wish did it reach the 
 public ; but the praise received warranted the publi- 
 cation. Byron read it and immediately wrote Wilde 
 a letter, calling the verses "the first poem of the cen- 
 tury." The scholar, Anthony Barclay, translated it 
 into Greek, and another scholar, mistaking it for an 
 original ancient poem, wrote an article in the North 
 American Review, accusing Wilde of plagiarism. 
 Much discussion was aroused, and several years 
 passed before the matter was made clear. Thus the 
 poem was soon a widely known one, and among the 
 sentimentally inclined the lines were often quoted: 
 
 "My life is like the summer rose, 
 
 That opens to the morning sky, 
 And ere the shades of evening close 
 Is scattered on the ground to die ; 
 Yet on that rose's humble bed 
 The sweetest dews of night are shed. 
 As though she wept such waste to see; 
 But none shall weep a tear for me." 
 
 The poem has several beautiful ideas and senti- 
 ments artistically expressed ; but that line repeated in 
 one form or another at the end of each stanza — 
 
 "But none shall weep a tear for me" 
 
 is certainly a bit of affectation and sentimentality 
 inexcusable according to more modern views. The 
 same weakness is noticeable in others of his poems. 
 
Richard Henry Wilde 205 
 
 The Ode to Ease, telling in a most original manner 
 the results of a choice between ease and industry, is 
 good and more than good in the main ; but the regret 
 in it strikes the reader as somewhat oratorical and 
 overwrought. Yet, it is not lacking in true poetic 
 quality. 
 
 "I chose thee, Ease ! and yet to me, 
 
 Coy and ungrateful thou hast proved. 
 Though I have sacrificed to thee 
 
 Much that was worthy to be loved. 
 But come again and I will yet 
 Thy past ingratitude forget. 
 Oh, come again ! Thy witching powers 
 Shall claim my solitary hours ! 
 With thee to cheer me, heavenly queen, 
 And conscience clear, and health serene. 
 And friends and books to banish spleen, 
 My life shall be as it has been, 
 
 A sweet variety of joys; 
 And glory's crown and beauty's smile, 
 And treasured hoards should seem the while 
 
 The idlest of all human toys." 
 
 In his Farewell to America, written on the occa- 
 sion of his departure for Europe, we have a really 
 good poem of patriotism, earnest and true in its 
 sentiment : 
 
 "Farewell, my more than fatherland ! 
 
 Home of my heart and friends, adieu ! 
 Lingering beside some foreign strand, 
 
 How oft shall I remember you ! 
 How often, o'er the waters blue, 
 
 Send back a sigh to those I leave. 
 The loving and beloved few. 
 
 Who grieve for me, — for whom I grieve !" 
 
 From the standpoint of naturalness and poetic appre- 
 ciation of Nature and its creatures, his little poem. 
 To the Mocking Bird, should rank high. Here is 
 a certain intermingling of humor and seriousness 
 that seems to agree most pleasantly with the subject. 
 In the daytime the bird is a "motly fool:" 
 
 "Thine ever ready notes of ridicule 
 Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe." 
 
206 Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar 
 
 He is indeed by day a "Yorick" ; but when darkness 
 comes he pours 
 
 "a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain" 
 as though he would, 
 
 "Like to the melancholy Jaques, complain, 
 Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong." 
 
 But justice will not allow us a more prolonged 
 study of Wilde. His were but partially accomplished 
 possibilities. With the poetic nature, the inborn 
 love of the best in literature, a perception of what is 
 artistic, he yet failed of great results. We can but 
 add him to the list of Southern men who wrote fairly 
 well, but might have written splendidly if in their 
 literary efforts they had been deeply in earnest. But 
 we have seen how poetry was to them not a vocation 
 but an avocation. 
 
 vni 
 
 Along with these minor though sweet-voiced sing- 
 ers were a few strong voices singing the songs that 
 in all the intervening years have not ceased to be 
 considered treasures. Let us glance quickly at a few 
 more of those who did "fairly" well and then turn 
 to those who did extremely well. 
 
 Among these minor poets was Mirabeau Buona- 
 parte Lamar (1798-1859). Born and reared at 
 Louisville, Georgia, he was for some 
 Mirabeau years a business man in that town. 
 Buonaparte But, turning his attention to journal- 
 Lamar ism, he became in 1828 editor of The 
 
 — Columbus . Inquirer, an advocate of 
 
 (1798-1859) states'-rights. In 1835 he removed 
 to Texas, fought in the battle of San 
 Jacinto, and led the charge that gained the conflict. 
 
Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar 207 
 
 Upon the establishment of the Republic of Texas, 
 he served successively as attorney-general, secretary 
 of war, vice-president, and president. He was 
 appointed United States minister to Argentine 
 Republic in 1857, but did not go to his post of duty; 
 in 1858, however, he became minister resident at 
 Nicaragua and Costa Rica. 
 
 Just the year before (1857), a small volume of 
 his poetry had been printed under the title of Verse 
 Memorials, and this, with an album of manuscript 
 poetry which was never published, constitutes the 
 sum total of his poetic endeavors. His verse shows 
 qualities akin to those of such writers as Burns, 
 Moore, and Hood in their lighter moments. Deep, 
 mighty efforts were never his ; but in his love lyrics 
 tihere is a sentiment expressed in musical rhyme 
 that is decidedly pleasing. In this form of song with 
 its excusable license in the use of slightly strained 
 descriptions and bold similes, a form that has been 
 used so admirably among the Scotch and the Irish, 
 Lamar was very much an adept. A stanza from 
 The Daughter of Mendoza will illustrate this : 
 
 "How brilliant is the morning star ! 
 The evening star how tender! 
 The light of both is in her eye, 
 Their softness and their splendor. 
 But for the lash that shades their light, 
 They are too dazzling for the sight ; 
 And when she shuts them, all is night — 
 The daughter of Mendoza." 
 
 And in mentioning this poem we have mentioned his 
 best one and the one that will longest be remembered. 
 
208 Edward Coate Pinkney 
 
 IX 
 
 Another of these poets of the lighter vein was 
 Edward Coate Pinkney (1802-1828) ; but in his 
 
 verse he sometimes reached a height 
 Edward that, if attained often, might have 
 
 Coate placed him among the great singers. 
 
 Pinkney His father was the famous minister 
 
 — to the court of St. James, and thus it 
 
 (1802-1828) happened that the boy was born in 
 
 London and spent the first eight years 
 of his life in England. In 181 1, however, he went 
 to Baltimore and entered St. Mary's College, where 
 he remained until he became a midshipman in the 
 United States Navy, five years later. Much of his 
 time as a seaman was spent in the Mediterranean, 
 and often indeed may we see in his writings effects of 
 the beautiful and romantic scenery of Italy. 
 
 "It looks a dimple on the face of earth, 
 The seal of beauty, and the shrine of mirth, 
 Nature is delicate and graceful there. 
 The place's genius feminine and fair : 
 The winds are awed, nor dare to breathe aloud ; 
 The air seems never to have borne a cloud, 
 Save where volcanoes send to heaven their curled 
 And solemn smokes like altars of the world." 
 
 It was in Italy, too, that he wrote his morbid 
 Rodolph, a poem in two cantos. 
 
 In 1822 he retired from the navy and, returning 
 to Baltimore, began the study of law. The same 
 year that he was admitted to the bar (1824) he 
 married the lady to whom his well-known Serenade 
 was addressed. He soon gave up the attempt to 
 practise his profession, turned his attention to the 
 study of literature, and in 1826 received the pro- 
 fessorship of belles-lettres in the University of 
 Maryland. At about the same time he became editor 
 of The Marylander in Baltimore, and thus he 
 
Edward Coate Pinkney 209 
 
 secured at length a work which gave him a fair 
 income and an opportunity to exercise his talents. 
 But by this time broken in health and with little 
 desire to live, within two years he had fretted away 
 his life. 
 
 At the time of his death this man of twenty-six 
 was considered one of the "five greatest poets of the 
 country"; but this was not necessarily a compli- 
 ment. Great poets in America were even scarcer 
 then than they are now. But Pinkney did have the 
 combined fervor and carefulness of true genius. His 
 felicity in lyric forms is not to be gainsaid. Such 
 a song as A Health is one not to be forgotten in a 
 day. 
 
 "I fill this cup to one made up 
 
 Of loveliness alone, 
 A woman of her gentle sex 
 
 The seeming paragon ; 
 To whom the better elements 
 
 And kindly stars have given 
 A form so fair that, like the air, 
 
 'Tis less of earth than heaven." 
 
 Compare his A Serenade with the best lyrics of the 
 same nature written by Longfellow, and the test will 
 be little to the detriment of Pinkney. 
 
 "Sleep not : — thine image wakes for aye 
 
 Within my watching breast ; 
 Sleep not : from her soft sleep should fly. 
 
 Who robs all hearts of rest. 
 Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break, 
 
 And make this darkness gay, 
 With looks whose brightness well might make 
 
 Of darker nights a day." 
 
 There is something above the ordinary in such 
 verses, and they are fair specimens of his better work. 
 His poems never fail to possess beauty of sentiment, 
 technical excellence, smoothness, and grace. Nor 
 is the all-pervading but elusive sadness so commonly 
 
210 Edward Coate Pinkney 
 
 found in classic lyrics altogether absent here. Note 
 but a stanza from one of the best poems that he wrote 
 — A Picture-Song: 
 
 "The sportive hopes that used to chase 
 
 Their shifting shadows on, 
 Like children playing in the sun 
 
 Are gone — forever gone; 
 And on a careless, sullen peace, 
 
 My double-fronted mind, 
 Like Janus when his gates were shut 
 
 Looks forward and behind." 
 
 To be a good lyric-writer, the poet must have the 
 exquisite power of blending varied sentiments. Is 
 that power absent in these lines? 
 
 "We break the glass whose sacred wine 
 
 To some beloved health we drain. 
 Lest future pledges less divine. 
 
 Should e'er the hallowed toy profane ; 
 And thus I broke a heart that poured 
 
 Its tide of feelings out for thee. 
 In draughts, by after times deplored. 
 
 Yet dear to memory." 
 
 Taking it all in all, here was a man who had the 
 possibilities of literary greatness. In his one volume, 
 Poems: Rodolph, a Fragment, and Other Poems 
 (1825) there is more good work than in almost any 
 collection of poetry brought out within the same 
 decade, and this is particularly true as to the whole- 
 someness and strength of the sentiment and in the 
 careful polish of the lines. Rodolph, however, is 
 distinctly disappointing; its thoughts are morbid, 
 unsafe; but the lyrics possess vitality and melody. 
 They are spontaneous, unaffected, and idealistic in 
 sentiment; and such qualities make a true song. 
 Here, then, was material for the making of a poet. 
 He was devoting much time to the study of litera- 
 ture; he was teaching the best in the world's writ- 
 ings; he might, in time, have come to possess the 
 deep earnestness so sadly lacking in too many of the 
 Southern writers. But mors vincit omnia. 
 
George Denison Prentice 211 
 
 X 
 
 A man often heard of in ante-bellum days was 
 George Denison Prentice (1802-1870). He was 
 a Northerner by birth and early train- 
 George ing, a Southerner by adoption and 
 Denison preference. Born at Preston, Con- 
 Prentice necticut, he was educated at Brown 
 — University, and, in the course of time 
 (1802-1870) having become a lawyer, in the course 
 of more time gladly renounced the 
 profession (1828). During the same year he 
 founded at Hartford The New England Review, 
 and after having brought it to a high state of effi- 
 ciency he turned it over, in 1830, to Whittier, and 
 came South. The purpose of this step was the col- 
 lecting of material for a Life of Henry Clay, and 
 Prentice fully intended to return soon to New 
 England ; but so interesting did he find the work and 
 so pleasant the surroundings that he not only 
 remained in the section, but, completely changing 
 his political views, opposed from this time forth the 
 principles of the Whig party. 
 
 Determining on Louisville as his home, he estab- 
 lished there The Journal (afterwards The Courier- 
 Journal), and soon made it a power in Southern 
 political, educational, and social interests. Through 
 it he encouraged many Southern writers and by word 
 and deed at length made Louisville one of the literary 
 centers of the section. But in spite of all his eflforts 
 and his interest in Southern movements, the effects 
 of his early training remained with him, and when 
 the Civil War came on he was a zealous opponent 
 of secession, and, daily facing dangers and failures, 
 remained loyal to the Union. 
 
 As a writer of prose he was witty, effective, and 
 always interesting ; as a poet he was serious, sombre. 
 
212 George Denison Prentice 
 
 and slightly affected. The collection entitled Prerir- 
 ticeana and his Life of Clay have had unnumbered 
 readers, and deservedly so; for they both are, in 
 their respective fields, brilliant pieces of work. But 
 his poems, once so popular, are now falling into 
 oblivion. Noble in sentiment, thoughtful, and elo- 
 quent, they are a little too declamatory to suit the 
 taste of later readers. Note, for example, these lines 
 from The Flight of Years: 
 
 '"Tis the voice 
 Of infant Freedom — and her stirring call 
 Is heard and answered in a thousand tones 
 From every hilltop of her western home — 
 And lo — it breaks across old Ocean's flood — 
 And Freedom, Freedom! is the answering shout 
 Of nations starting from the spell of years." 
 
 This may have sounded grand in the ears of con- 
 temporary readers, but it sounds rather grandilo- 
 quent, if not bombastic, to us today. But many 
 parts are not without a stern strength. His best 
 known poem. The Closing Year, has at times some- 
 thing of the sombre reflection of Young's Night 
 Thoughts: 
 
 '"Tis a time 
 For memory and for tears. Within the deep, 
 Still chambers of the heart a spectre dim, 
 Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, 
 Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 
 And solemn finger to the beautiful 
 And holy visions that have passed away 
 And left no shadow of their loveliness 
 On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts 
 The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love, 
 And bending mournfully above the pale, 
 Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers 
 O'er what has passed to nothingness." 
 
 There are lines, too, of highly excellent quality 
 in their kind, — the kind that overwhelms us in such 
 
Philip Pendleton Cooke 213 
 
 a poem as Bryant's The Ages. The last lines of The 
 Closing Year illustrate it : 
 
 "Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, 
 Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not 
 Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
 To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
 Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought." 
 
 Here indeed is an echo of the dignity, the sternness, 
 and the sombreness of Bryant, but not the simplicity. 
 Prentice might have taken one of his witticisms very 
 seriously when he said: "The greatest truths are 
 the simplest ; the greatest men and women are some- 
 times so, too." 
 
 XI 
 
 A name that for some time appeared regularly in 
 the Knickerbocker Magazine and the Southern 
 Literary Messenger was that of 
 Philip Philip Pendleton Cooke (i8i6- 
 
 Pendleton 1850) . He was a brother of John Es- 
 Cooke ten Cooke, of whom as a novelist and 
 
 — essay-writer during a later period, we 
 
 (1816-1850) may justly take much notice. And if 
 1 the poet had been as enthusiastic a 
 
 poet as he was a Nimrod, he might have displayed 
 a genius equal to that of his famous brother. But 
 such a passion for hunting was his that business, 
 social duties, and even bodily health were neglected ; 
 and finally death was caused by exposure while 
 engaged in the chase. The history of his life 
 is brief. Born at Martinsburg, Virginia, he was 
 educated at Princeton, studied law and opened an 
 office — where he was seldom seen. Literature and 
 hunting henceforth occupied his time. 
 
 During his short life the only collection of his 
 poems ever made was Froissart Ballads, and Other 
 Poems (1847) ; t)ut this does not by any means con- 
 
214 Philip Pendleton Cooke 
 
 tain all of his poetry. Though at his best in verse 
 he was also a novelist, and his efforts along this line, 
 such as John Carpe, The Crime of Andrew Blair, 
 The Gregories of Hackwood, and Chevalier Merlin 
 were very popular in his day. But, as has been 
 mentioned, he is remembered because of his poetical 
 work. Poe admired it, and, upon assuming the 
 editorship of The Gentleman's Magazine, at once 
 made him a regular contributor. Here appeared 
 some of those poems the origin of which he explains 
 in the quotation from an old Roman poet : 
 
 "A certain freak has got into my head. 
 
 Which I can't conquer for the life of me, 
 Of taking of some history, little read. 
 Or known, and writing it in poetry." 
 
 But above these narrative poems stand three or four 
 love-lyrics, Rosa Lee, To My Daughter Lily, and 
 those lines so often repeated by ante-bellum lovers — 
 Florence Vane: 
 
 "I loved thee long and dearly, 
 
 Florence Vane; 
 My life's bright dream and early. 
 
 Hath come again; 
 I renew, in my fond vision. 
 
 My heart's dear pain. 
 My hope and thy derision, 
 
 Florence Vane. 
 
 "Thou wast lovelier than the roses 
 
 In their prime ; 
 Thy voice excelled the closes 
 
 Of sweetest rhyme; 
 Thy heart was a river 
 
 Without a main. 
 Would I had loved thee never, 
 
 Florence Vane !" 
 
Severn Teackle Wallis 215 
 
 XII 
 
 A man widely known in his own day but one 
 seemingly almost forgotten now was Severn 
 Teackle Wallis (1816-1894). 
 Severn And, yet, as lawyer, reformer, author, 
 
 Teackle and poet, he was a worker, who, with 
 
 Wallis great seriousness of purpose, gained 
 
 — results in many walks of life. His 
 
 (1816-1894) whole life centered about Baltimore; 
 for he was born there, received his 
 scholastic training at St. Mary's College in that city, 
 studied law in the office of the famous William Wirt, 
 and practised his profession there. He was in many 
 ways an odd character, loving his home-life, though 
 he was a bachelor, spending many hours a day 
 among his books, but ever ready and able to go forth 
 as a leader among men. 
 
 In 1847 he visited Spain and upon his return wrote 
 his entertaining Glimpses of Spain. Four years 
 before this he had been elected a corresponding mem- 
 ber of the Spanish Royal Academy of History ; and 
 it was largely on account of his knowledge of Span- 
 ish institutions and customs that he was chosen by 
 the Government in 1849 to examine the titles of East 
 Florida lands lately purchased from Spain. The 
 literary result of this trip was Spain: Her Institu- 
 tions, Politics, and Public Men. During these years 
 he had become noted for his independence in thought 
 and action. As a zealous worker for reforms, he 
 was a power to be feared by all evil-doers, and no 
 movement along this line ever undertaken by him 
 in his native city failed. With the outbreak of the 
 Civil War, he was arrested by the Federal Govern- 
 ment, kept a close prisoner for more than fourteen 
 months, and then released without explanation. And 
 indeed no explanation was possible ; for he had been 
 
216 George Dewey 
 
 an opponent of the Rebellion. When the war closed 
 he saw more clearly than ever the need of reform in 
 many governmental and municipal departments, and 
 his eloquent addresses, especially those delivered 
 before universities and educational bodies, bore rich 
 fruitage in later years. In 1870 he succeeded John 
 P. Kennedy as provost of the University of Mary- 
 land, and thus gained an additional means of influ- 
 encing a multitude of young leaders in his State. 
 
 His poems, while they do not show large genius, 
 impress us with the same carefulness, nicety in the 
 distinction of words, and beauty of sentiment as 
 we have noticed in other verse of the period. The 
 Last of the Hours, God's Acres, Truth and Reason, 
 and The Blessed Hands were read widely in former 
 days, especially the latter, with its beautiful legend 
 of the undying hand of the good monk Anselm : 
 
 "Oh loving, open hands that give, 
 Soft hands the tear that dry, 
 Oh patient hands that toil to bless — 
 How can ye ever die ! 
 
 "Ten thousand vows from yearning hearts 
 
 To Heaven's own gates shall soar, 
 And bear you up, as Anselm's hand 
 Those unseen angels bore." 
 
 XIII 
 
 A very popular poem in ante-bellum days was 
 Blind Louise. The exact date of the production of 
 
 it is not known; but it must have 
 
 George been written previous to 1842; for in 
 
 Dewey that year it appeared in Gris wold's 
 
 — Poets and Poetry of America. The 
 
 (1818= ) facts concerning the author, George 
 
 DeweYj are just as meagre. Although 
 a man of some prominence in literary and artistic 
 circles of his day, he has left little on record con- 
 
Amelia Welby 217 
 
 ceming his own life, and still less has been recorded 
 by his contemporaries. We know that he was born 
 at Baltimore in 1818, that early in life he went to 
 Philadelphia, and that most of his life was spent 
 there. His father was, for a time, a painter in that 
 city, and the son, although engaged in mercantile 
 pursuits, took great interest in artistic affairs and 
 indeed held an office in the Art Union of Phila- 
 delphia. The many essays and reviews written by 
 him during these years have never been collected. 
 Of the numerous poems which we know he wrote 
 very few besides Blind Louise now exist. This little 
 poem is distinctly the result of Wordsworth's influ- 
 ence ; for here are found the same sort of theme, the 
 same simplicity in the sentiment, and the same 
 absence of vivid coloring. The similarity is notice- 
 able in any of the stanzas. 
 
 "She knew that she was growing blind — 
 
 Foresaw the dreary night, 
 That soon would fall without a stir 
 Upon her fading sight; 
 
 "Yet never did she make complaint, 
 But prayed each day might bring 
 A beauty to her waning eyes, 
 The loveliness of Spring ! 
 
 "We found her seated as of old, 
 
 In her accustomed place, 
 A midnight in her sightlessness. 
 And morn upon her face." 
 
 XIV 
 
 Another poet whose works were widely read and 
 
 extravagantly praised during this period, but whose 
 
 name is totally unknown today to 
 
 Amelia many students of American Litera- 
 
 Welby ture, was Amelia Welby (1819- 
 
 1852). In this case, however, such 
 
 (1819-1852) oblivion was by no means deserved. 
 
 For, although lacking the disciphned 
 
 mind and the wide knowledge so necessary in the 
 
218 Amelia Welby 
 
 making of a great and true poet, she approaches in 
 several instances perfection in rhythm and harmony. 
 She, too, was from Maryland, having been born at 
 St. Michael's in that State, and having spent much 
 of her earlier life at Baltimore. After 1834 her 
 home was in Louisville, Kentucky, and in that city 
 she married a prosperous merchant, George Welby. 
 There, too, about the year 1837 she began to con- 
 tribute under the name of "Amelia" some remark- 
 ably sweet and melodious bits of verse. In using 
 such words, let us understand that the efforts had 
 not the greatness of conception and of passion 
 necessary for masterpieces; but they were indeed 
 "sweet and melodious." Such poems naturally 
 attracted wide attention, and when, at the age of 
 eighteen, she published Poems by Amelia, she was 
 encouraged to further endeavors by a most flattering 
 sale of the book. These verses have much the char- 
 acter of those sought by magazines of today — short 
 portrayals of a single sentiment melodiously 
 expressed. Thus, in her Twilight at Sea, she sings : 
 
 "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 caught a star in its embrace, 
 
 And held it trembling there." 
 
 Such lines, especially the last four, are lifted by the 
 art of their expression above the level of mediocrity. 
 And, again, To a Sea-Shell is beautiful in both 
 content and structure : 
 
 "Shell of the bright sea-waves, 
 What is it that we hear in thy sad moan? 
 In this unceasing music all thine own, 
 Lute of the ocean-caves? 
 
James Mathewes Legare 219 
 
 '"Tis vain — thou answerest not! 
 Thou hast no voice to whisper of the dead; 
 'Tis ours alone, with sighs like odours shed, 
 To hold them unforgot." 
 
 The ways of fortune are inexplicable. Poets of 
 much less merit than Amelia Welby have received 
 permanent recognition ; but she, with all her "sweet- 
 ness and melody," is unknown to the great majority 
 of poetry readers. Again the people of the Southern 
 States allowed excellence in literature to be for- 
 gotten. North of the Mason and Dixon Line such 
 neglect of budding genius occurred with commend- 
 able rarity. 
 
 XV 
 
 Let us close this study of the "lesser lights" of 
 Southern ante-bellum poetry with another verse- 
 writer who deserves more from pos- 
 James terity than he has received. James 
 
 Mathewes Mathewes Legare, inventor, and 
 Legare poet, — how Poverty must smile at 
 
 — such a combination! — came of a 
 
 (1823-1859) noted family in Southern affairs ; and 
 yet the known facts concerning his 
 career are very few. That he was born at Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina, in 1823 ; that he patented many 
 inventions, but failed through ill-health to carry 
 them to financial success; that he published Orta- 
 Undis and Other Poems in 1847, and that he died 
 at Aiken, South Carolina, in 1859 seem to compose 
 the sum-total of information about him. 
 
 The best known of his poems are Ahab 
 Mohammed and To A LJ/y,two very different pieces, 
 yet each excellent of its kind. Ahah Mohammed 
 may be designated as a miniature of Lowell's Vision 
 of Sir Launfal. It is not lacking in beauty of thought 
 and grace of expression. 
 
220 James Mathewes Legare 
 
 "A peasant stood before a king and said, 
 'My children starve, I come to thee for bread.' " 
 
 The king took him to the royal dining-room. 
 
 "Silent behind the folds of purple closed 
 In marble life the statues stood disposed." 
 
 And there, amid all the splendor, was the king's 
 banquet — one small loaf of bread! For the city 
 was besieged by the enemy, and all suffered for food. 
 Taking the loaf, the king thanked God for it, and 
 divided it equally between the peasant and himself. 
 And lo! the beggar's rags dropped away, and an 
 angel of Allah stood before the noble king. 
 
 "He who gives somewhat does a worthy deed, 
 Of him the recording angel shall take heed, 
 But he that halves all that his house doth hold 
 His deeds are more to God, yea more than finest gold." 
 
 Need we prove Legare's versatility after quoting 
 a few lines from To A Lily? 
 
 "Go bow thy head in gentle spite. 
 
 Thou lily white. 
 For she, who spies thee waving here 
 With thee in beauty can compare 
 
 As day with night. 
 
 "Soft are thy leaves and white : her arms 
 
 Boast whiter charms. 
 Thy stem prone bent with loveliness. 
 Of maiden grace possesseth less : 
 
 Therein she charms." 
 
 Let US now pass from these minor figures in 
 Southern Literature. Their weaknesses are evident ; 
 but are not many good qualities as apparent ? The 
 conception of great themes is not theirs ; the intense 
 fervor and the accompanying restraint are lacking; 
 sustained efforts are rarely attempted. But melody 
 of words, beauty of thought, artistic expression of 
 sentiment — are they not here in some richness ? In 
 
Albert Pike 221 
 
 these singers of simple lyrics we have at least the 
 promise of greater things to come. Let us now turn 
 to the very few who in some degree fulfilled the 
 promise. 
 
 XVI 
 
 During this period there were living and working 
 in the South at least two men whose poetry shows 
 distinct, unmistakable genius and whose place among 
 the better writers of American Literature succeeding 
 years have but more firmly established. They ai-e 
 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Albert Pike 
 ( 1809-1891 ). If we compare them with each other 
 we find that their respective attainments differ 
 extremely in literary excellence and therefore in 
 absolute value ; but when the two are compared with 
 the majority of the other Southern writers of the 
 period, it will be seen that their conception of what 
 true literature is and requires, as well as their devo- 
 tion to the production of the best within their 
 respective powers, places them on a much higher 
 level than that of their contemporaries. Literature 
 was not a mere recreation to Poe and Pike ; it was a 
 life-work, — a something to which the efforts of a 
 whole existence might properly be devoted. 
 
 In Albert Pike we find a most versatile man. 
 During the course of his life he was teacher, lawyer, 
 I poet, lecturer, editor, and soldier, 
 
 Albert Pike and in every direction in which he 
 — turned his brilliant intellect, he never 
 
 (1809.1891) failed to do good work. Perhaps the 
 fact that he was born at Boston had 
 something to do with it! Doubtless his being a 
 young man in New England when that section was 
 beginning an exceedingly brilliant literary career 
 influenced him ; certainly his excellent mental train- 
 ing as a youth brought forth fruit. As a boy he 
 lived at Framingham, Massachusetts, and there he 
 
222 Albert Pike 
 
 prepared to enter college. He did enter the Junior 
 class at Harvard, but finding that he would be 
 expected to pay the fees for the two previous years, 
 he left the institution and completed the scholastic 
 training by himself. 
 
 In 1 83 1 he began a long tour of the West and 
 wandered hither and thither, month after month, 
 until he reached Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1832. 
 There he decided to make his home. He opened a 
 school and in his leisure moments wrote sketches, 
 which he sent to The Little Rock Advocate and 
 which were praised and commented upon rather 
 widely throughout the West. These efforts soon 
 secured for him the assistant editorship of the paper, 
 and from this time his reputation grew steadily. 
 Undertaking the study of law by himself, he was 
 admitted to the bar in 1836. Two years previous 
 he had published Prose Sketches and Poems. It 
 was evident that literature and not law was his first 
 love. In 1839 his Hymns to the Gods appeared in 
 Blackwood's Magazine, and though written years 
 before — in his twentieth year, it seems — they were 
 most excellent and attracted much attention. 
 
 Soon the teacher, poet, editor, and lawyer was to 
 enter a new field of action. The Mexican War came 
 on, and, having recruited a cavalry regiment, he 
 became a colonel and served through the conflict. 
 He now began to feel the need of a wider field for 
 his law practice, and accordingly, in 1853, he 
 removed to New Orleans, where he was enjoying 
 the prosperity and leisure of a typical Southern 
 lawyer when the Civil War burst forth with its 
 mighty social upheaval. Again he answered the call 
 to arms, this time as a brigadier-general of Indian 
 troops in the Confederate army, and again the versa- 
 tility of the man stood the test. When peace was 
 proclaimed he took up the practice of law in 
 Memphis, and with this profession again combined 
 
Albert Pike 223 
 
 that of editor. Removing to Washington in 1868, 
 he retained for a time his practice as a lawyer; but 
 by 1880 he was spending all of his time on literary 
 work, and when he died in 1891 few American 
 writers were better known. 
 
 Perhaps the most widely read writingfs of Albert 
 Pike are Prose Sketches and Poems (1834), Hymns 
 to the Gods (1837), Nugae (1854) and Morals and 
 Dogma of Freemasonry (1870) — for he was the 
 highest Masonic dignitary in the United States ; but 
 these volumes do not by any means comprise all that 
 he wrote. Much of his prose has not yet been col- 
 lected. Pike's poems show the untiring care of an 
 artist. He was not contented with "well enough"; 
 he pursued excellence to the limit of his powers. 
 Careful in rhythm and rhyme, he rarely fails to give 
 the theme a poetic atmosphere. In his love for 
 Nature he is particularly happy, often giving to a 
 description the very sentiment that the reader has in 
 a vague way felt but could not express. To the 
 Mocking Bird is an illustration : 
 
 "Thou glorious mocker of the world : I hear 
 
 Thy many voices ringing through the gloom 
 Of these green solitudes ; and all the clear 
 Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear, 
 And floods the heart." 
 
 Again, that love of Nature that has been a char- 
 acteristic of so many of the world's true poets shines 
 forth in these lines : 
 
 "I cannot love the man who doth not love 
 As men love light, the song of happy birds ; 
 
 For the first visions that my boy-heart wove, 
 
 To fill its sleep with, were that I did rove 
 Through the fresh woods, what time the snowy herds 
 
 Of morning clouds shrunk from the advancing sun, 
 Into the depths of Heaven's blue heart, as words 
 
 From the Poet's lips float gently, one by one, 
 And vanish in the human heart ; and then 
 I revelled in such songs and sorrowed, when, _^ 
 
 With noon-heat overwrought, the music-gush was done. 
 
224 Albert Pike 
 
 Of such a man we should expect in the treatment 
 of Nature an imagery of some eloquence; and we 
 are not disappointed. Read the spirited ode, To 
 Spring, and note such language as this : 
 
 "Thou lover of young wind, 
 That Cometh from the invisible upper sea 
 Beneath the sky, which clouds, its white foam, bind, 
 And settling in the trees deliciously, 
 
 Makes young leaves dance with glee. 
 Even in the teeth of that old, sober hind, 
 
 Winter unkind." 
 
 and this : 
 
 "Red Autumn from the south 
 Contends with thee ; alas ! what may he show ? 
 What are his purple-stain'd and rosy mouth. 
 And browned cheeks, to thy soft feet of snow. 
 
 And timid, pleasant glow, 
 Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal growth. 
 
 And greenest youth ?" 
 
 Pike, like many of the Southern poets, dealt much 
 in sentiment; but, unlike some of them, he escaped 
 largely the taint of sentimentality. In all of his 
 emotion there is never lacking manliness. With the 
 outbreak of war he wrote these words in a poem 
 entitled Dixie (not, of course, the original song, 
 which was composed by an Ohioan, Daniel Emmett) : 
 
 "Southrons, hear your country call you! 
 Up, lest worse than death befall you ! 
 
 To arms ! To arms ! To arms, in Dixie ! 
 Lo ! all the beacon-fires are lighted — 
 Let all hearts be now united ! 
 
 To arms ! To arms ! To arms, in Dixie !" 
 
 What a step from this to his Every Year: 
 
 "Life is a count of losses. 
 
 Every year ; 
 Lost Springs with sobs replying 
 Unto weary Autumn's sighing. 
 While those we love are dying. 
 
 Every year. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 225 
 
 "The days have less of gladness 
 
 Every year ; 
 The nights more weight of sadness 
 
 Every year; 
 Fair Springs no longer charm us, 
 The winds and weather harm us 
 
 Every year. 
 
 "But the truer life draws nigher 
 
 Every year ; 
 And its morning-star climbs higher 
 
 Every year ; 
 Earth's hold on us grows slighter, 
 And the heavy burden lighter. 
 And the Dawn Immortal brighter. 
 
 Every year." 
 
 It is difficult to place these poets of varying moods. 
 Albert Pike taught no one greattheory of philosophy ; 
 he was not of one school ; he sang according to the 
 mood of the moment. A Tennyson has his optimistic 
 trustfulness, a Browning his theory of fearless man- 
 liness, a Whitman his bold declaration of equality, 
 but this poet is not of their kind. He was but a 
 singer of much art and some power, and his voice 
 reached the hearts of many and influenced men for 
 the better life. He did this and, doing that much, 
 he accomplished in a great degree the poet's mission. 
 We turn from him, however, to an artist of such 
 marvelous powers in the use of his native tongue that 
 few if any writers in the English language are his 
 superior in this particular. 
 
 XVII 
 
 One of the saddest and yet one of the most irrita- 
 ting stories in all literature is the narrative of the 
 life of Poe. Endowed with talents 
 Edgar of extraordinary power, he ruthlessly 
 
 Allan Poe squandered and debauched them, and 
 — his life closed with but a beginning of 
 
 (1809=1849) the magnificent fruition which right- 
 fully should have been his. Yet, the 
 genius of the man survived in spite of the man. 
 
226 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 Poe's early life was such as would try the mettle 
 of far more stalwart souls. Left in the hands of 
 unwise persons, he was led into those excesses toward 
 which his excitable nature too easily prompted him, 
 and which finally ruined his pathetic yet brilliant 
 career. If ancestry be worth anything, he was 
 fortunate in his ; for his grandfather, David Poe, was 
 the Revolutionary general over whose grave Lafay- 
 ette murmured, "Ici repose un coeur noble." In 1803 
 the old hero's son, also named David, deserted his 
 profession as a lawyer to join a company of players 
 in Charleston, South Carolina, and three years later 
 he married a member of the troupe, a beautiful' 
 widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Hopkins. Thus it happened 
 that while the company was filling an engagement in 
 Boston early in the year 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was 
 born in that city, January 19. 
 
 Within two years the father was lying dead in 
 Richmond, and the mother soon followed him. 
 Three children were left to the charity of the city, 
 and Edgar was taken by John Allan, one of the 
 wealthiest men in the city. Thus the boy came to be 
 called Edgar Allan Poe. And thus, also, the seeds 
 of future ruin were sown; for the foster-father, 
 proud of his brilliant charge, habitually had the boy 
 brought before visitors to drink their health and 
 make surprising speeches. The taste for liquor 
 afterwards became the pursuing demon of his life, 
 while the exalted, extravagant opinion of his own 
 talents and of his own importance, gained as a child, 
 never deserted him in manhood, and caused his days 
 to be filled with bitter disappointments. In his early 
 scholastic training he was fortunate. At the age of 
 six he was taken to England and entered Manor 
 House School, Stoke-Newington, and there the 
 opportunity was his to wander through the streets 
 of strange, old London and breathe in that love of 
 the quaint and of the weird in which his soul already 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 227 
 
 so abounded. During the five years spent in the 
 English school, he was praised among the masters 
 because of his ability in Latin and French, and 
 among the boys because of his prowess in out-door 
 sports, while through personal characteristics he 
 gained the love of none. 
 
 We find him, in 182 1, once more in Richmond, and 
 here, under the training of private tutors, he 
 remained until 1826. Then began the tragic scenes 
 of the man's career. He entered the University of 
 Virginia, immediately gained notice in the study of 
 languages, began to drink and gamble, contracted 
 heavy debts, entered a counting-house of Allan's, 
 ran away, and at length reached Boston. All this, 
 too, within one year, be it remembered. While in 
 Boston he published his first volume of verse ( 1827), 
 and there, too, under the name of Edgar A. Perry, 
 he enlisted in the regular army. He served near 
 Boston, Charleston, and Fortress Monroe (where he 
 obtained ideas for scenes in his Gold Bug), and 
 proved on all occasions such an excellent soldier that 
 he soon rose to the rank of sergeant-major. He kept 
 his identity hidden very successfully for a time ; but 
 in 1829 Allan, whose heart had been softened by 
 the death of Mrs. Allan, sought him out and during 
 the next year had him entered at West Point. But 
 Poe was not bom to be a soldier. A student in the 
 Military Academy thus wrote of him : "He was a 
 devourer of books ; but his great fault was his neglect 
 of and apparent contempt for military duties. His 
 wayward and capricious temper made him at times 
 utterly oblivious or indifferent to the ordinary routine 
 of roll-call, drill, and guard duties. These habits 
 subjected him often to arrest and punishment and 
 effectually prevented his learning or discharging 
 the duties of a soldier." Of course such conduct 
 could not long be tolerated at so strict an institution 
 as West Point ; and we find Poe discharged in March, 
 1831. 
 
228 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 From this time forth his life was devoted to litera- 
 ture, and to literature only. His talent as a verse- 
 writer had become known among his fellow-cadets, 
 and before leaving the school he had secured sub- 
 scriptions enough to issue the volume which appeared 
 shortly after his discharge and which was entitled 
 simply Poems (1831). Here we find promise of 
 something decidedly worth while. The music of the 
 verses astonished all readers, and although they con- 
 tained no depth of thought and no strikingly sincere 
 sentiment, they possessed a weirdness, a tone of 
 romance, and a luxurious appeal to the ear that 
 immediately charmed the reader. Of philosophy 
 there was little or none. Poetry, he stated in this 
 collection — which contained also his first publicly 
 expressed theory of verse — has as its immediate 
 object "pleasure, not truth." It is opposed to 
 romance in "having for its object an indefinite 
 instead of a definite pleasure ... to which end 
 music is an essential, since the comprehension of 
 sweet sound is our most indefinite conception." 
 
 But in spite of the rather novel theory and the 
 beautiful poetic structures built according to it, the 
 volume did not have a large sale, and Poe soon left 
 New York, where it had been published, and returned 
 to Richmond. Here again he niet with discourage- 
 ment. Mr. Allan would have nothing whatever to 
 do with him, and he soon drifted on to Baltimore. 
 In 1833 The Baltimore Saturday Visitor offered a 
 prize of one hundred dollars for the best story sub- 
 mitted by an American writer, and from the hand 
 of Poe there came a piece of fiction that surprised 
 the literary circles of the South — Manuscript Found 
 in a Bottle. It was a tale, strange in its plot and 
 masterful in its presentment ; it announced in Poe a 
 new and peculiar writer. Now was the tide in his 
 affairs which taken would have led to success. John 
 P. Kennedy, of whom we have already read, took 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 229 
 
 notice of him, and in 1835 secured for him a posi- 
 tion on the newly established Southern Literary 
 Messenger. Within a few months he became editor ; 
 the circulation of the magazine suddenly rose from 
 seven hundred to five thousand; and his prose was 
 rapidly gaining him a wide fame. Here, too, he 
 began to write a rather ferocious form of criticism 
 and to display unfortunately a cheap learning so 
 evidently shallow that he fully deserved the words 
 of Lanier: "Poe didn't know enough." But, at 
 the same time, his arguments were so filled with 
 literary insight and undeniable though unpleasant 
 facts that readers were compelled to admit their use- 
 fulness and were always anxious to read more. 
 
 During the next year he married his cousin, Vir- 
 ginia Clemm. She was but a child, only fourteen; 
 yet their married life was ideal in its pure devotion, 
 and she was ever a help and indeed an inspiration 
 to the irresolute husband. Life indeed looked fair. 
 But suddenly he gave himself into the clutches of 
 liquor ; his position as editor of the Southern Liter- 
 ary Messenger was lost ; and the remaining thirteen 
 years of his life form but a disheartening succession 
 of brief attainments and dismal failures. One year 
 in New York, six in Philadelphia, back to New York, 
 South again, and then death in a dreadful form — such 
 is, in brief, the closing history of his career. 
 
 Writers in literature have given various reasons 
 for Poe's losing so quickly this first editorial posi- 
 tion and later in life various other positions of the 
 same nature. Some have said that dissipation 
 caused the frequent changes ; others, meagre support 
 of the magazines ; still others, the fact that he desired 
 to found a magazine of his own. Probably all of 
 these reasons had much to do with the matter. Eigh- 
 teen months from the time that he began work on the 
 Southern Literary Messenger, we find him in New 
 
230 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 York, and there in 1838 he published another story 
 of startling character, his Adventures of Arthur 
 Gordon Pym. That same year he went to Phila- 
 delphia, where The Gentleman's Magazine had just 
 been established by the comedian, Burton, and, 
 having secured a place on the staff, he again soon 
 found himself in the editor's chair. Again, too, the 
 same literary and financial prosperity attended the 
 change ; but within a few months he was once more 
 adrift. In 1840 Graham's Magazine was established 
 at Philadelphia ; Poe was selected as editor-in-chief ; 
 and the circulation quickly bounded from five thou- 
 sand to fifty-two thousand. All this time he was 
 writing desperately perhaps, yet well, and thrilling 
 stories and trenchant criticisms poured forth in 
 abundance. Most of his work, it is true, was in 
 prose ; for he considered poetry not a purpose but a 
 passion, and never attempted verse unless passion 
 was present. But what prose it was ! The literary 
 world of America had not seen such art before. 
 
 Eighteen months passed, and again he had lost 
 the position of editor. After a brief period spent 
 in miscellaneous work he returned, badly discour- 
 aged, to New York. Yet, the most productive years 
 of his career were those spent at Philadelphia. Here, 
 in fact, were written several of his masterpieces, 
 Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the 
 Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, — stories 
 which from that year, 1843, when they appeared 
 as The Prose Romances of Edgar Allan Poe, have 
 influenced a notable line of the world's writers, 
 Sardou, Verne, Kipling, Doyle, and many another. 
 
 Such graphic description, such morbid yet power- 
 ful imagination, such minuteness of detail, such 
 logical structure, such plausibility carried to proba- 
 bility had rarely been evidenced in American Litera- 
 ture. Poe found himself an object of admiration 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 231 
 
 and of wonder. When, in 1844, The Raven appeared, 
 the admiration and wonder redoubled. Readers 
 in other lands began to speak of him, and Mrs. 
 Browning wrote that a friend of hers who had a 
 bust of Pallas, could not now bear to look at it. 
 Indeed, from that day foreign critics, especially 
 among the French, have had an inclination to place 
 him at the head of the American school of writers, 
 and some have declared that he alone among all the 
 poets of the New World was an originator and a 
 true artist. 
 
 However gratifying all this praise both at home 
 and abroad may have been, the fact remains that Poe 
 was drifting morally and financially from bad to 
 worse. In 1845 ^e joined the staff of The Broad- 
 way Journal, published in New York, soon gained 
 complete control of it, and brought it to financial 
 ruin within three months. Then, accepting a posi- 
 tion with Godey's Lady's Book, he proceeded to make 
 enemies on every hand by writing in that magazine 
 a series of articles entitled The Literati of New York. 
 It so happened that shortly after the publication of 
 The Raven and Other Poems, the Boston Lyceum 
 invited him to recite a poem at one of its public meet- 
 ings, and, having forgotten about the occasion until 
 it was too late to compose something new, he went 
 before the dignified body and recited Al Aaraaf, a 
 boyhood effort, published in the first volume shortly 
 after his abrupt departure from the University of 
 Virginia. The rendition of this poem was followed 
 by great applause, but when, a little later, Poe 
 divulged the secret of the poem's origin, the Lyceum 
 felt highly insulted. Poe now took occasion to 
 declare that he did this to insult the "genius" of 
 "the Frog Pond." He further stated that he him- 
 self was born at Boston, "a fact he was very much 
 ashamed of, but for which he was in no wise respon- 
 
232 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 sible." He criticised with unsparing ferocity Gris- 
 wold's well-known book on American poets and so 
 wounded the man's feelings that when the same 
 author was afterwards selected to write a biography 
 of Poe, human nature overcame the sense of fair- 
 ness, and Poe's memory among men was darkened 
 by the resulting work. Utterly devoid of policy, the 
 eccentric nature of the poet made him numberless 
 enemies. 
 
 He now published a full edition of his poems ; but 
 poetry is not a money-making art, and, although he 
 received much praise, he was in the direst poverty. 
 The last days of his life in the great city were most 
 miserable. In January, 1847, his wife died. The 
 pathos of that scene is almost insufferable. "There 
 was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, 
 but a snow-white counterpane and sheets. The 
 weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful 
 chills that accompany the hectic fever of consump- 
 tion. She lay on the straw-bed, wrapped in her 
 husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat 
 in her bosom. The wonderful cat seemed conscious 
 of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat were 
 the sufferer's only rneans of warmth, except as her 
 husband held her hands, and her mother her feet." 
 
 Poe was now a mere wreck. In 1849 he wandered 
 back to Richmond, remained there a brief time, and 
 then went to Baltimore. Here, it is said, he was 
 drugged and taken to the polls to be voted, and then 
 left half dead, upon the streets. Fever came on, and 
 he died Sunday, October 7, 1849. We may well 
 close the strange story with the words carved on 
 the memorial tablet in the New York Museum of 
 Art: "He was great in his genius, unhappy in his 
 life, wretched in his death; but in his fame he is 
 immortal." 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 233 
 
 As a critic Poe may quickly be dismissed. He 
 brought about some needed reforms in his day ; for 
 his ideals were high, and he required of both him- 
 self and others excellence in the strictest sense. But 
 his decisions were too often based on personal likes 
 or dislikes, and his final opinions too frequently 
 nothing more than biased conceptions founded on 
 inaccurate knowledge. His statements were at times 
 violent, often bitter, and sarcastic to an unwarranted 
 degree. Oftentimes he assumed an offensive superi- 
 ority to which his display of second-rate learning 
 did not entitle him, while his endeavors to please 
 what he termed "the vulgar mob" led him into 
 excesses that deprived his utterances of the most 
 essential quality of a true critic — sincerity. 
 
 As a writer of fiction he must be recognized as 
 one of the world's great masters. His field is nar- 
 row ; but within that field his creative powers are so 
 original, so startling that we may indeed consider 
 him as its discoverer. And what is his field ? Simply 
 the short story — more particularly the short story 
 dealing with human ingenuity. 
 
 In the very form of literature in which Americans 
 have shown the most originality — humor — Poe is 
 most deficient. Not that the man himself was devoid 
 of the trait; for those who knew him best have 
 described him as a genial man fond of a laughable 
 tale, while at least one deed of his shows him to us 
 of today as a lover of the practical joke. When a 
 very young man he published a statement in a Balti- 
 more paper declaring that on a certain date he would 
 make a trip in his lately invented flying machine, and 
 he cordially invited the public to be present. The 
 day came, and a great crowd waited patiently for 
 several hours. At length, after having enjoyed the 
 spectacle sufficiently from a seat in an upper window, 
 he sent forth a note stating that "unfortunately one 
 
234 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 of his wings had gotten wet!" But no such turn 
 of mind ever appears in his works. A tinge of hope- 
 lessness, a certain nervous dread, gloom, fear, a too- 
 lingering gaze at the horrible, the ghastly, and the 
 ghostly, almost acute morbidness — these are char- 
 acteristics of his stories. 
 
 The claim has frequently been made that such 
 subjects should not receive literary treatment, and 
 that Poe's method of treatment, especially, goes 
 beyond the bounds of literary propriety. But litera- 
 ture is not to be hemmed in by such prison walls ; it 
 is not forever a thing of soft sentiments and sweet 
 descriptions. It deals with life, and every phase 
 of life is worthy of treatment. Poe simply chose 
 strange but not infrequent phases and portrayed 
 them for all time. Under this general character of 
 his work we may perceive, perhaps, four divisions 
 into which his stories may fall: first, the Problem 
 Story — such as The Gold Bug — where a logical 
 explanation of an intricate puzzle is given; second, 
 the Realistic Story of Adventure — such as The 
 Descent into the Maelstrom — where sickening fear 
 is most evident ; third, the story based on the Fasci- 
 nation of Terror — such as The Fall of the House of 
 Usher — where the reader is held as by the charm of 
 a snake ; and, fourth, the story founded on the Inter- 
 est in the Horrible — such as The Masque of Red 
 Death — where that rather morbid yet universal itch- 
 ing to know the details of a repulsive incident is 
 catered to. Is not all this but another outgrowth of 
 the weird and grotesque-loving Romantic movement 
 of the early nineteenth century ? 
 
 In spite of the uncanny subjects and treatments 
 chosen by Poe, he proves interesting to many classes 
 and conditions of readers. It has been said that he 
 is thoroughly cosmopolitan; but if he be cosmo- 
 politan it is not because he is of the earth, but rather 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 235 
 
 because, turning away from the world, he builds from 
 his imagination, and from it alone, his fantastic 
 structures. And thus he appeals to the universal 
 man. When The Murders in the Rue Morgue 
 appeared, Dickens wrote him a letter of praise, while 
 the Revue des Deux Mondes gave a most flattering 
 criticism. Brander Matthews has declared that at 
 the end of the nineteenth century the works of Poe 
 were the only American writings read eagerly in 
 Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. 
 It would seem from the fact that these stories are 
 enjoyed in so many translations that their form can- 
 not be the main source of their attractiveness. The 
 tales are in general character highly artistic, and 
 indeed perfection of narrative style is often 
 approached; but beyond these traits are the power 
 of the theme, the fascinating search into mystery, 
 the constantly evolving plot, and the ever-present 
 appeal to the universal characteristics of supersti- 
 tion, dread, and horror. And yet after all is said, 
 the eternal quality of his fiction is its intensity; it 
 is written with grim, unrelenting, demonic earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 Swinburne has said of America: "Once as yet, 
 and once only, has there sounded out of it all one 
 pure note of original song — worth singing and 
 echoed from the singing of no other man ; a note of 
 song neither wide nor deep but utterly true, rich, 
 clear, and native to the singer; the short exquisite 
 music, subtle and simple and sombre and sweet, of 
 Edgar Poe." Such is the decision of one of Eng- 
 land's most conservative critics ; and no less flatter- 
 ing are the conclusions of various German and 
 French litterateurs. And yet few, if any, Americans 
 have ever regarded him in such a light. His ideas 
 concerning poetry are so different from those held 
 by other poets of the New World ; his productions 
 
236 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 are so novel, so incomprehensible to many; their 
 intellectual results are so vague, so intangible. He 
 is a poet without a philosophic message. He is not 
 moral ; neither is he immoral ; he is simple unmoral. 
 He denies the generally accepted belief that poetry 
 is the handmaid of religion, philosophy, or morality; 
 to him it is its own excuse for being. "His poems 
 have no other purpose. They convey no moral ; they 
 echo no call to duty; they celebrate beauty only — 
 beauty immaterial and evanescent." 
 
 Perhaps in his zeal he sometimes becomes a mere 
 worker for effects. But in spite of these lapses from 
 sincerity and in spite also of the highly artificial 
 scheme of his poetry with all its fantastic and mel- 
 ancholy character, he produces a verse the effect of 
 which defies analysis. The themes of his composi- 
 tions are often vague, while very few stimulate 
 thought ; but the strange, hidden suggestion of im- 
 perishable beauty lingers long after the poems have 
 been laid aside. In his opinion tone-production 
 stands before contents in importance, and songs are 
 sung simply because they are songs. His own verses 
 are never rhymed dissertations or rhythmical ser- 
 mons; their emotion is seldom overwhelming; they 
 are simply epitomes of the sweetest harmonies in 
 the language. Never was he so completely overcome 
 by feeling that his facility in apt alliteration or his 
 store of strange, melodious words deserted him. His 
 philosophy was without form and void ; for he came 
 simply as an exponent of that one great thought of 
 Keats' : "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Lack- 
 ing the insight of a Shakespeare, the depth of a 
 Milton, and the learning of a Browning, he was, 
 within his narrow bounds, a master singer, one so 
 imbued with the harmonies of his native tongue that 
 to him words became not so much instruments of 
 thoughts as blending notes in spoken melody. 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 237 
 
 As a rfesult of this, many of his poems are seem- 
 ingly devoid of meaning, and defy explanation. 
 Ulalume, for instance, is a mist of beauty, almost 
 without substance ; it is music in words. Is the fact 
 to be wondered at, then, that American readers, 
 whose views concerning poetry have been based for 
 generations upon the sermonizing tendencies of 
 writers born of Puritan stock, have failed to see in 
 this new poet who sang without preaching, a man 
 worthy of admiration? Perhaps, after all, this 
 sense of the artistic effect of sound, — this seeking 
 for perfection in harmony, is the best evidence of 
 the influence of Poe's Southern environment; for 
 time and time again in our study we have seen that 
 sweet combinations of sounds rather than expound- 
 ing of deep doctrines were the all-in-all to many of 
 the Southern verse-writers. The tendency seems to 
 have come to a masterful culmination in Poe. 
 
 That his scheme of poetry is peculiar cannot be 
 denied. In the first place, he contends that the 
 moment a poem ceases to interest intensely, it ceases 
 to be a poem. Hence none of his poems are long. In 
 the second place, he believes, as we have seen, that 
 the sound of the word is poetically more important 
 than its meaning, and that, after all, a poem is pri- 
 marily a structure of harmonious tones. As a result, 
 his poems not infrequently are hazy in meaning, 
 but are none the less effective in their appeal to the 
 soul. Again, departing from the usual standards of 
 rhythm, he holds to the theory, afterwards 
 expounded by Lanier and other Southern poets, that 
 verse might and should be based upon the less regular 
 and more nearly hidden rhythm of music, and that 
 poetry is melody in words just as music is melody 
 in tones which singly are meaningless and even not 
 beautiful. The poem of words is to him the com- 
 panion of the symphony of tones ; each is irregular 
 
238 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 in form and defies accurate analysis, and yet, as a 
 whole, is capable of great emotional effects. 
 
 In order to carry out such a principle a master- 
 hand is needed. The skill of Poe in the attainment of 
 sounds is surpassingly great ; for under his manipu- 
 lation words take unto themselves a new sound, and 
 flow in a liquid stream of naturally combining har- 
 monies. Note the words of Israfel: 
 
 "If I could dwell 
 Where Israfel 
 
 Hath dwelt and he where I, 
 He might not sing so wildly well 
 
 A mortal melody, 
 While a bolder note than this might swell 
 
 From my lyre within the sky." 
 
 That he is a most successful seeker for melodious 
 and haunting sounds is shown most plainly, perhaps, 
 in The Bells, where the changing scenes are indi- 
 cated fully as much by the combined arrays of vowels 
 and consonants as by the meaning of the lines. 
 
 "Hear the loud alarum bells, 
 
 Brazen bells ! 
 What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells ! 
 In the startled ear of night 
 How they scream out their affright ! 
 Too much horrified to speak, 
 They can only shriek, shriek, 
 Out of tune, 
 In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire. 
 In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire. 
 
 "Oh, the" bells, bells, bells! 
 What a tale their terror tells 
 
 Of Despair 1 
 How they clang and clash and roar ! 
 What a horror they outpour 
 On the bosom of the palpitating air ! 
 Yet the ear it fully knows 
 By the twanging 
 And the clanging, 
 How the danger ebbs and flows." 
 
 The alliteration, the gradual deepening of vowels, 
 the intensifying pause, the sudden and rapid outburst 
 
Edgar Allan Poe 239 
 
 of startling sounds, these will give some hints as to 
 the effectiveness of Poe's art. 
 
 Is it necessary that every poet should be a pro- 
 pounder of philosophy? Must a verse-maker usurp 
 the clergyman's sphere before he is entitled to the 
 crown of genius? Let us hope, rather, that in time 
 we may all come to recognize the now much dis- 
 puted fact that the song is worth while simply as a 
 song. He who adds one mite of beauty to the world 
 is worthy of immortality. Poe came to bring beauty 
 — simply beauty of sound. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 
 
 (1850-1875) 
 
 The period before us opened in bitterness and 
 closed in sorrow. Within the quarter of a century- 
 included between 1850 and 1875 the very founda- 
 tions of the Southern social system were swept 
 away ; the rich became poor, and the poor rich ; slaves 
 became citizens vested with the right of suffrage; 
 an exceedingly wealthy territory became so poverty- 
 stricken that even a succeeding quarter of a century 
 of peace still found the States burdened with debt; 
 a sacrifice of life occurred, so dreadful that the young 
 manhood of the land was almost annihilated; and 
 between the two sections of the great Republic there 
 arose an animosity so fierce that the slightest com- 
 parison became insufferable. All this, be it remem- 
 bered, came to pass, within the brief span of twenty- 
 five years. 
 
 Was this a time for artistic literature? Could 
 the poet dally with the muse, the novelist spin the 
 webs of imagination, the essayist argue the abstrac- 
 tions of philosophy when the blood of thousands 
 of fellow-mortals soaked their native fields, when 
 the cry of the widow and of the orphan was heard 
 in the land, and when an invading army left on every 
 side far-reaching trails of destruction ? During that 
 great conflict sorrow was caused in the Northern 
 States simply by the report of what was happening; 
 but in the South it was caused not only by the report 
 
242 The Civil War Period 
 
 but by the actual presence and sight of destructive 
 horrors. The war was to New England but a dis- 
 tant conflict; it was in the South. 
 
 This was not an ideal period for the creation of 
 literature. Men were doing, not dreaming. It was 
 not a day for writing history; for all were busy 
 making it. Moreover, the very nature of the sub- 
 ject uppermost in men's minds compelled such bitter- 
 ness, such prejudice, such brutality of criticism that 
 the restraint which goes to make true greatness in 
 writing could not exist. Strife is not the friend of 
 calm speculation; art is the aftermath of war, not 
 the companion. Even in that department in which 
 the Southern States had at all times excelled — states- 
 manship — there was a waning of true power. The 
 unshaken judgment, the ability to unite in a convinc- 
 ing manner principles and occasions, the oratory 
 that stings deep, yet is ever decorous and strictly 
 within bounds, — these deserted the great majority 
 of the statesmen of the day. The wild surge of pas- 
 sion overcame restraint. The subtleness, the touch 
 of philosophy, and the largeness of conception that 
 are, in the very nature of things, essentials of true 
 oratory, seemed lost, and few indeed were the 
 speeches worthy of admiration. When, therefore, 
 we come to consider the form of literature which 
 was of such power in the period of construction, 
 oratory, we find no longer men of such mould as 
 Calhoun and Clay. True, there were men who did 
 eminent service in those years of hatred and strife. 
 But the very presence of the "hatred and strife" 
 prevented that broadness of conception so necessary 
 in the character of a statesman of the highest rank. 
 
Jefferson Davis 243 
 
 I 
 
 Now, among the men who probably should be 
 mentioned as approaching this rank is the President 
 of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis 
 Jefferson (1808-1889). He was a native of 
 
 Davis Kentucky, but early in life removed 
 
 — to Mississippi, and ever afterwards 
 
 (1808=1889) the chief interests of his life were 
 connected with the latter State. After 
 a course in Transylvania University, Kentucky, he 
 entered West Point in 1824 and graduated in 1828. 
 After seven years of military life, he was forced by 
 ill health to resign his commission, and he now 
 undertook the cultivation of a Mississippi planta- 
 tion. We find him ten years later ( 1845) ^ member 
 of Congress, later, an officer in the Mexican War, 
 then Secretary of War under Pierce, and in the dark 
 days of 1 86 1 a United States Senator. Then it was, 
 in January of the same year, that he delivered a brief 
 and sorrowful farewell to his fellow-senators, and, 
 returning home, began to make preparations for the 
 defense of his State. But, in the meantime, he had 
 been chosen President of the new nation and, hasten- 
 ing to Montgomery, Alabama, he began that career 
 so full of labor, sorrow, and criticism. At the close 
 of the war he was made a prisoner at Fort Monroe 
 and remained in captivity for two years. He was 
 released on bond and went abroad, but at length 
 returned to Mississippi, where his last days were 
 spent. 
 
 It is difficult to gain a true conception of this man's 
 character and ability. If victory had been his, the 
 qualities of greatness that he surely possessed might 
 have shown clearly; as it was, the hatred and ridi- 
 cule of the greater part of the victorious section 
 fell upon him. Yet his work previous to the Civil 
 
244 Jefferson Davis 
 
 War had won for him the admiration of both the 
 North and the South. As an orator he was a power. 
 "His orations and addresses are marked by classical 
 purity, chaste elegance of expression, a certain noble- 
 ness of diction, and a just proportion of sentence to 
 idea." There is indeed a dignity, a high seriousness, 
 in all that he wrote. The Rise and Fall of the Con- 
 federacy might be given as an illustration of this ; 
 but beyond it is his brief but memorable address on 
 leaving the Senate. He had just received word that 
 Mississippi had seceded. Rising in the midst of 
 the silent assembly of his peers, he announced that 
 Mississippi had "declared her separation from the 
 United States." 
 
 "It is known to Senators who have served with 
 me here that I have for many years advocated, as 
 an essential attribute of State sovereignty, the right 
 of a State to secede from the Union. Therefore, if 
 I had not believed there was justifiable cause, if I 
 had thought that Mississippi was acting without 
 sufficient provocation, or without an existing neces- 
 sity, I should still, under my theory of the gove'-n- 
 ment, because of my allegiance to the State of 
 which I am a citizen, have been bound by her action. 
 
 . . . I hope none who hear me will confound 
 this expression of mine with the advocacy of the 
 right of a State to remain in the Union and to dis- 
 regard its constitutional obligations by the nullifi- 
 cation of the law. Such is not my theory. . . . 
 A great man, who now reposes with his fathers and 
 who has often been arraigned for a want of fealty 
 to the Union, advocated the doctrine of nullification 
 because it preserved the Union. . . . Secession 
 belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be 
 justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. 
 There was a time when none denied it. I hope the 
 time may come again when a better comprehension 
 
Robert Toombs 245 
 
 of the theory of our government and the inahenable 
 rights of the people of the States, will prevent any 
 one from denying that each State is a sovereign, and 
 thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to 
 any agent whomsoever. " 
 
 II 
 
 Those early months of 1861 were indeed painful 
 ones in the Senate. Day after day saw more vacant 
 
 seats, and morning after morning, 
 
 Robert amidst the silence of suspense, mem- 
 
 Toombs bers arose and bade farewell to their 
 
 — fellow-legislators. Among the men 
 
 (1810°1885) to go forth thus abruptly perhaps the 
 
 greatest loss was in the person of 
 Robert Toombs (1810-1885). Passionate in tem- 
 per, vehement in speech, persistent to stubbornness, 
 he became a force in any movement with which he 
 connected himself. He was a native of Georgia, 
 and, with the exception of his student-life at Union 
 College, New York, and at the University of Vir- 
 ginia, his home and chief interests were always in 
 that State. His first term in Congress began in 
 1845, and his work there continued for more than 
 fifteen years. The story of his life from the year 
 1 86 1 may be told very quickly. For a time he held 
 a position in the Confederate cabinet, soon resigned, 
 became a general in the Confederate army, fled, after 
 the surrender, to Cuba and later to France, and 
 remained abroad until 1867. In that year he 
 returned to his home in Georgia, and passed his 
 remaining years in comparative quietness. 
 
 Robert Toombs was a man sincere in his convic- 
 tions, but extremely partisan. So bitter were his 
 feelings after the war that he never took the oath of 
 allegiance, and to his last day maintained the absolute 
 righteousness of the "lost cause." His speeches 
 
246 Robert Toombs 
 
 were true to the man. Fierce, dogmatic, over- 
 whelming, they expressed no half-thoughts and hid 
 no emotions. "Concentrated fire was always his 
 policy." Therefore his farewell address on leaving 
 the Senate had but little of the regret and restraint 
 of the speech by Davis ; instead, a tone of accusation, 
 vehemence, and confidence in the final outcome per- 
 vaded the whole effort. 
 
 "Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new 
 government. . . . What do these rebels demand ? 
 First, that the people of the United States shall have 
 an equal right to emigrate and settle in the Terri- 
 tories with whatever property (including slaves) 
 they possess. Second, that property in slaves shall 
 be entitled to the same protection from the govern- 
 ment as any other property (leaving the State the 
 right to prohibit, protect, or abolish slavery within 
 its limits). Third, that persons committing crimes 
 against slave property in one State and flying to 
 another shall be given up. Fourth, that fugitive 
 slaves shall be surrendered. Fifth, that Congress 
 shall pass laws for the punishment of all persons 
 who shall aid and abet invasion and insurrection in 
 any other State. . . . 
 
 "You will not regard confederate obligations ; you 
 will not regard constitutional obligations; you will 
 not regard your oaths. . . . We have appealed 
 time and again for these constitutional rights. You 
 have refused them. . . . Redress these flagrant 
 wrongs — seen of all men — and it will restore 
 fraternity and unity and peace to us all. Refuse 
 them, and what then? We shall then ask you, 'Let 
 us depart in peace.' Refuse that, and you present 
 us war." 
 
Alexander H. Stephens 247 
 
 III 
 
 A man whose name was continually before the 
 public during the conflict and for nearly twenty years 
 afterwards was Alexander Hamil- 
 Alexander ton Stephens, Vice-President of the 
 H. Stephens Confederacy. He was a Georgian, 
 — and there had fought his way through 
 
 (1812=1883) many adversities until he graduated at 
 the State University, had studied law 
 entirely by himself, and had been admitted to the bar. 
 Both nature and environment seemed to be against 
 the man. He was left an orphan in utter poverty at 
 fourteen. He was small in stature, so frail in con- 
 stitution that the question ever before him was, "Am 
 I physically able to do this?" While a teacher at 
 Madison, Georgia, he gave up the school because he 
 had fallen in love with one of the pupils and felt 
 that it would be wrong for a man of such feeble 
 health to marry. Year after year additional mis- 
 fortunes came upon him. He was so badly crippled 
 by an accident that he was obliged for a long time to 
 use crutches; sickness in violent forms frequently 
 made life a misery ; the slightest strain overpowered 
 him. Said a writer of his day: "He is the most 
 unhappy looking great man I have ever seen." 
 
 But, hampered as he was, he was a man of mar- 
 velous power. He entered the State legislature in 
 1836, and Congress seven years later, and there he 
 remained until 1858. In that year he retired from 
 public life; but in 1861 the Southern States called 
 him forth to be their Vice-President. He was con- 
 fined for several months in the prison at Fort 
 Warren, Massachusetts, and when released was 
 physically a wreck. But with a spirit as strong as 
 ever, he went to Atlanta, engaged in newspaper work, 
 became a United States Senator in 1874 and again in 
 1876, and at the time of his death was Governor of 
 
248 Alexander H. Stephens 
 
 his State. So unbounded was the admiration of 
 the common people for him that one old voter pro- 
 posed that Georgia "send his crutches to Congress 
 even after he himself was unable to go." 
 
 What was the source of his power ? The answer 
 is found in the keen, thoughtful, and sincere char- 
 acter of the man. His views often seemed at first 
 sight to be contradictory, but when his argument is 
 followed faithfully the doubt is dispelled. Just 
 before the act of secession he made a most earnest 
 plea for the preservation of the Union, and a few 
 months later he accepted the Vice-Presidency of the 
 Confederacy. But his speeches and papers show 
 that at all times he denied the necessity of secession, 
 but defended the right of it, while even during his 
 occupancy of the office he seemed to have a genuine 
 regret that the separation had occurred. 
 
 As a close and logical writer, he was a great aid 
 to the South in the plea for the independence of the 
 State. "Many writers," he remarks, in his History 
 of the United States, "maintain that the individuals 
 upon entering into society, give up or surrender a 
 portion of their natural rights. This seems to be a 
 manifest error. . . . The object of society and 
 government is to prevent and redress injuries of this 
 sort. . . . Another erroneous dogma pretty 
 generally taught is, that the object of governments 
 should be to confer the greatest benefit upon the 
 greatest number of its constituent members. The 
 true doctrine is, the object should be to confer the 
 greatest possible good upon every member, without 
 any detriment or injury to a single one." And 
 Stephens was not only logical and convincing; he 
 had a talent for description. Notice a few lines from 
 a sketch of the Senate (1850) : 
 
 "One vacant seat is seen not far off on the same 
 side of the House. A vacant seat in such a crowd 
 excites the attention of all. 'Whose seat is that?' 
 
Alexander H. Stephens 249 
 
 goes in whispers around. 'It's Calhoun's — not well 
 enough to be out yet. ' 'Who is that sitting by Cass ?' 
 says one. 'That is Buchanan — come all the way 
 from home to hear Clay.' 'What thin-visaged man 
 is that standing over yonder and constantly moving ?' 
 'That is Ritchie of the Union.' 'Who is that walk- 
 ing down the aisle with that uncouth coat and all 
 that hair about his chin? Did you ever see such a 
 swaggerer? i:r^ can't be a Senator.' 'That is Sam 
 Houston.' " 
 
 Among Stephens' writings are a History of the 
 United States and an excellent School History of the 
 United States, but his most powerful work is his 
 Constitutional View of the War Between the States 
 (1868). Written from the Secessionist point of 
 view, of course, it is nevertheless lifted far above the 
 mere partisan spirit. Slowly, persistently, minutely 
 unraveling a most logical argument, the volume 
 shows the work of a thinker furnished with an 
 abundant knowledge of history, law, and statecraft. 
 Few books have been more widely reviewed. In 
 some magazines and newspapers a long war of words 
 resulted; but, no matter what the opinion concern- 
 ing the principles and theories of the volume, seldom, 
 if ever, was Stephens' manner of expression success- 
 fully attacked. For he knew how to cast aside the 
 superfluities surrounding the very core, or heart, of 
 a subject, and, having once possessed himself of it, 
 how to hold firmly to it against all endeavors to dis- 
 tract his attention. He was indeed "an earnest 
 student of the science of government, and his 
 writings in illustration of it possess great philosophi- 
 cal value." Had the conflict between the States 
 come to a more successful issue for the South, 
 Alexander Stephens might have held, through his 
 tenaciously logical mind and knowledge of state- 
 craft, a position of first rank among the world's 
 statesmen. 
 
250 Zebxilon Baird Vance 
 
 IV 
 
 So far the statesmen whom we have noticed had 
 attained great prominence before the war. The last 
 
 of the legislators whose oratory and 
 
 Zebulon writings are deserving of discussion 
 
 Baird Vance won his fame during the conflict and 
 
 — in the days of Reconstruction. 
 
 (1830=1894) Zebulon Baied Vance ( 1830-1894) 
 
 was a native of the State for which 
 he did so much, North Carolina, and at its university 
 and at Washington College, Tennessee, he received 
 his early training. He began the practice of law at 
 Asheville, and then there followed the "inevitable" 
 election to the State legislature. When he at length 
 entered Congress, his wit and eloquence made him 
 most conspicuous and so much a favorite that the 
 projector of a new movement in the legislative halls 
 zealously sought his support. In fact, to this day, 
 many a native of the Old North State, when telling 
 a good joke, always prefaces it by the statement that 
 "Old Governor Vance used to tell it." 
 
 But Vance was something more than a humorous 
 speaker — as both sections discovered during the 
 conflict. He was very much opposed to secession 
 but felt bound to follow the decision of his native 
 State; and therefore when the war began, he organ- 
 ized and took command of a Confederate regiment. 
 In 1862, however, he was elected Governor of North 
 Carolina. Now the real ability of the man showed 
 itself. He organized new regiments; he collected 
 money and supplies; he endeavored to gain the 
 sympathy of foreign nations ; he unceasingly encour- 
 aged by both word and deed the worn-out soldiers 
 of the South. He favored the consideration of 
 peace in 1863, but, finding this hope futile, he 
 returned to his energetic hostility. It was then that 
 he gained the name "War Governor of the South." 
 
Zebulon Baird Vance 251 
 
 The reputation thus gained was, of course, somewhat 
 injurious to him in later years ; for it was not until 
 1872 that he was allowed to hold a federal office. 
 He was elected to the United States Senate in 1870; 
 but his seat was refused him. However, he was 
 elected Governor of North Carolina in 1876 and 
 again entered Congress in 1879, and from that time 
 until^ his death in 1894 he was a power in national 
 politics. 
 
 It is, of course, because of his power as an orator 
 and not as a statesman, that Vance is given attention 
 here; for as a speaker he did indeed hold his 
 audiences charmed. He was a man full of thought 
 and yet not so much a philosopher that sentiment 
 was alien to him. Often picturesque and vivid in 
 his descriptions and always admirably simple and 
 clear, there were in his addresses a certain chasteness 
 of expression and a happy mingling of sentiments 
 betokening the true orator. Notice, for instance, a 
 few lines from a description of the ante-bellum 
 negro : 
 
 "There is also a great change at hand for the 
 negro. . . . Who that knew him as a contented, 
 well-treated slave, did not learn to love and admire 
 ■ the negro character ? I, for one, confess to almost 
 an enthusiasm on the subject. The cheerful ring 
 of their songs at their daily tasks, their politeness 
 and good manners, their easily bought but sincere 
 gratitude, their deep-seated aristocracy — for your 
 genuine negro was a terrible aristocrat, . . . 
 altogether, made up an aggregation of joyous sim- 
 plicity and fidelity — when not perverted by harsh 
 treatment — that to me was irresistible. . . . 
 
 "Nature ceased almost to feel fatigue in the joyous 
 scenes. . . . The fiddle and the banjo, ani- 
 mated as it would seem like living beings, literally 
 knew no rest, night or day; while Terpsichore 
 covered her face in absolute despair in the presence 
 
252 Zebulon Baird Vance 
 
 of that famous double-shuffle with which the long 
 nights and 'master's shoes' were worn away- 
 together! . . . 
 
 "And there, too, plainest of all, I can see the fat 
 and chubby form of my dear old nurse whose 
 encircling arms of love fondled and supported me 
 from the time whereof the memory of this man 
 runneth not to the contrary. All the strong love 
 of her simple and faithful nature seemed bestowed 
 on her mistress' children, which she was not per- 
 mitted to give to her own, long, long ago left behind 
 and dead in 'ole Varginney.' Oh! the wonderful 
 and touching stories of them and a hundred other 
 things which she has poured into my infant ears!" 
 
 V 
 
 Just as the standard of oratory and of writings 
 pertaining to statesmanship was lowered by the last 
 bitter years preceding the Civil War, so the serious 
 essay, dealing with the deeper and more general 
 phases of life and its philosophy, was discouraged 
 almost into nothingness. The local questions of 
 States'-Rights and Slavery, with all their attending 
 prejudices and preconceived ideas, not only hampered 
 search for exact truth but kept the Southern intellect 
 away from those eternal questions that have con- 
 stituted the greatest element in universal literature. 
 In the effort to defend an institution that should not 
 have existed and that was proving a curse to the 
 nation, the principal effort of all writers on questions 
 then of paramount interest seems to have been 
 toward the concealment of painful truths. Under 
 such conditions a literature having as its purpose a 
 criticism of life could not flourish. 
 
 Whatever we shall find in the way of essays dur- 
 ing this period was written, for the most part, pre- 
 
Octavia Walton LeVert 253 
 
 vious to the actual beginnings of hostility. More- 
 over, that which does not deal entirely with the 
 bitter questions then agitating the nation, is of a 
 light, entertaining, or even humorous character. 
 But in those strange, tumultuous years extending 
 from 1850 to 187s, how few indeed are the authors of 
 even this form of literature! 
 
 Perhaps the first essayist worthy of notice among 
 the writers of this period is Octavia Walton 
 
 LeVert (1810-1877), a woman of 
 Octavia brilliant talents and extensive culture. 
 
 Walton Born of a wealthy and influential 
 
 LeVert family, fortunate in her early train- 
 
 — ing and environment, happy in her 
 
 (1810-1877) marriage, gratified in her every wish, 
 
 known and welcomed by the great and 
 noble of several lands, she seems to have been a 
 favorite of fortune. Her birth-place was near 
 Augusta, Georgia; but when she was still a small 
 child, her family removed to Pensacola, Florida, 
 and there amid the beautiful surroundings of that 
 resort she spent much of her girlhood. Besides 
 possessing the advantages of living in such a neigh- 
 borhood — for it possessed not only natural but social 
 features — she was privileged on various visits to 
 meet some of the most famous men of the day, 
 among them Irving, Webster, Clay, Lafayette, and 
 personages of equal rank. All of these she impressed 
 as a girl of remarkable promise. Lafayette, taking 
 her upon his knee, listened, spell-bound, to her use 
 of his native language, and when she had finished, 
 exclaimed, "Ah, a truly wonderful child! I predict 
 for her a brilliant career." Irving became her fast 
 friend, and in after years said of her, "She is such a 
 woman as occurs but once in the course of an 
 empire." 
 
254 Octavia Walton LeVert 
 
 Extensive travel, added to her knowledge of lan- 
 guages and her general education, made her a 
 woman of exceptionally broad culture, and her mar- 
 riage, in 1836, to Dr. Henry LeVert of Mobile but 
 enlarged her opportunities to shine in the highest 
 intellectual circle of Southern life. In 1853 she 
 made her first visit to Europe and two years later 
 made a second one. It was during this latter trip 
 that Lamartine, after listening with admiration to 
 her descriptions of persons and places, advised her 
 to write a book of travels. Said he, "You can fill 
 with pleasure the hearts of your nation." As a result 
 of these words there appeared in 1858 Souvenirs of 
 Travel. It was a most decided success. Unham- 
 pered by conventionalities, fresh, accurate, rapid in 
 movement, and ever happy in conception and 
 expression, the book had a charm for every class 
 of readers, and every class, it appears, did read it. 
 Whatever topic it took up was presented from a new 
 view-point and with a richness of phrasing too often 
 absent in the American prose-writers of her day. 
 
 Perhaps the most familiar portions to readers of 
 today are the description of the Brownings in Venice 
 and the ascent of Vesuvius. The latter especially is 
 a powerful piece of descriptive prose — in fact, an 
 article bearing comparison with the very best work 
 of the kind yet done by an American. Madame 
 LeVert prepared two other volumes. Souvenirs of 
 the War and Souvenirs of Distinguished People; 
 but for personal reasons these were not published. 
 Both would be of wide interest today; for, fortu- 
 nately, the passion incident to the great struggle 
 between the two sections has so nearly died away 
 that such books would prove to be not only enter- 
 taining, but acceptable and authoritative sources for 
 historical research. 
 
Joseph Baldwin 255 
 
 VI 
 
 "The disposition to be proud and vain of one's 
 country and to boast of it, is a natural feeling; but 
 
 with a Virginian, it is a passion. It 
 
 Joseph inheres in him even as the flavor of 
 
 Baldwin a York river oyster in that bivalve." 
 
 — So wrote Joseph Baldwin (i8ii- 
 
 (1811=1864) 1864) in Flush Times in Alabama 
 
 and Mississippi; and the truth of his 
 assertion was evidenced most strikingly in his own 
 point of view. Although most of his life was spent 
 in Alabama and California, he was a native of Vir- 
 ginia, and ever looked upon that land as the stand- 
 ard for all comparisons. In Alabama his rank as 
 a lawyer was high, and later, when he became a 
 citizen of California, his ability in this line secured 
 for him, in 1857, the position of Judge of the 
 Supreme Court and, in 1863, that of Chief Justice 
 of the State. 
 
 Now, like many another lawyer in the South, 
 Judge Baldwin "indulged" in literature. But, unlike 
 many of these amateurs, what he produced is really 
 excellent of its kind. In his descriptions of local 
 scenes and local characters he infuses an individu- 
 ality and a spirit of humor that cause his writings 
 to stand considerably above the average. Thus, in 
 his Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi and in 
 his work of similar nature concerning California, 
 he gives something more than a mere account of the 
 "rough and ready" civilization of a newly settled 
 section. Eccentric characters, curious customs, and 
 ludicrous scenes give the subject a most diversified 
 interest. The same words may be applied to his 
 Party Leaders, a series of papers on great states- 
 men, in which the various characters stand forth in 
 the full light of their widely different characteris- 
 tics. There is life in all of these efforts. Frequently 
 
256 Thomas R. R. Cobb 
 
 there is a shy sort of satire ; but it is always of a gen- 
 tle and forgiving kind ; for, of course, he, as a Vir- 
 ginicm, has been more fortunate in his origin and 
 opportunities. And he admits his prejudices and, 
 from time to time, pokes fun at it too. 
 
 "Patriotism with the Virginian is a noun personal. 
 It is the Virginian himself and something over. 
 . . . He loves the talk about her (Virginia) : 
 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 
 It makes no odds where he goes, he carries Virginia 
 with him ; not in the entirety always — ^but the little 
 spot he comes from is Virginia. . . . He never 
 gets acclimated elsewhere. . . . The right of 
 expatriation is a pure abstraction to him. He may 
 breathe in Alabama, but he lives in Virginia. His 
 treasure is there and his heart also. If he looks at 
 the Delta of the Mississippi, it reminds him of James 
 River 'low grounds' ; if he sees the vast prairies of 
 Texas, it is a memorial of the meadows of the Val- 
 ley. ... 'It is the Kentucky of a place' which 
 the preacher described Heaven to be to the Ken- 
 tucky congregation." 
 
 VII 
 
 It has been the misfortune of some men to be 
 
 hindered rather than helped by their epoch. There 
 
 appeared just before the first roar of 
 
 Thomas the civil conflict a book called The 
 
 R. R. Cobb Law of Slavery, a work of such accu- 
 
 — r3-cy, calm judgment and searching 
 
 (1823=1862) philosophical insight that it should 
 
 have become known far and wide. 
 
 Unfortunately, the clash of arms changed reason 
 
 to madness, and they that might have read the book 
 
 became slayers of their fellow-men. The author 
 
 of the volume, Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb 
 
Thomas R. R. Cobb 257 
 
 (1823- 1 862) was a Georgian, who, as Richard Mal- 
 colm Johnston has said, "had a combination of as 
 many shining gifts as any man whom this country 
 has produced." Educated at Franklin College, an 
 institution founded upon the ancient pillars of Latin, 
 Greek, Mathematics, and Belles-Lettres, he came 
 into the world of affairs with a mind so developed 
 and so keen that at the close of one year's practise of 
 law, he was not only a highly successful attorney, 
 but probably the best known one in the entire State. 
 His power of concentration and his ability to cling 
 to the main point in spite of all efforts to distract 
 him made him a power in Southern legal circles. 
 
 It is not as a lawyer nor as a writer on legal sub- 
 jects that Cobb deserves notice here; although his 
 Digest of the Laws of Georgia is considered by 
 many attorneys the most powerful and living conden- 
 sation of law ever produced in America. But it is 
 as a writer on the throbbing question of slavery and 
 the yet unsettled question of education that he is 
 worthy of memory. He was an advocate of peace, 
 and, as the days of the Civil War approached, he 
 became a most zealous writer upon the subject. Time 
 after time articles by him appeared in the Boston 
 Post and other Northern papers. His Letters from 
 an Honest Slaveholder to an Honest Abolitionist 
 and A Georgian's Appeal to the People of the Non- 
 Slaveholding States made him a man of genuine 
 influence in the North. It was in this period of his 
 life that he published his Law of Slavery. Here in- 
 deed was a book admirable in its lack of prejudice, 
 surprising in its arguments, strong in its grasp of his- 
 torical and philosophical facts. During the brief time 
 ensuing between its publication and the outbreak of 
 hostility it received remarkably wide attention ; but 
 in the battles of four years its powerful reasoning 
 was lost sight of, and when at last a period of calm- 
 
258 George William Bagby 
 
 ness came, slavery was no more. The author, too, 
 had ceased to be ; for in the second year of the war, 
 while leading the famous "Cobb legion," he met 
 death. 
 
 Cobb should be remembered as a champion of 
 education. His papers on Free Education were 
 eminently useful in a section where the institution 
 of slavery so greatly hindered the enlightenment of 
 the laboring classes, while, as founder of the Lucy 
 Cobb Institute at Athens, Georgia, he has left to 
 posterity a concrete evidence of his interest. His 
 memory should live through The Law of Slavery; 
 but, unfortunately, such is not the case. But whether 
 the reader be from a Northern State or a Southern 
 State, from America or a foreign land, he will always 
 be surprised at the scholarly restraint and power of 
 the book. It, with his other essays on the question 
 of slavery, filled as they are with reference to law, 
 ethics, and religion, and with descriptions of the 
 conditions of slavery and of Southern life, should 
 prove of unquestioned value to students of history, 
 economics, and sociology. 
 
 VIII 
 
 In mentioning the last character now to be dis- 
 cussed in the study of essayists and sketch-writers, 
 
 we have finished a very meagre list; 
 George but there are few or none who have 
 
 William not been justly excluded. We have 
 
 Bagby noticed in other periods that much of 
 
 — the sketch-writing was of a humorous 
 
 (1828=1883) character. Within this period, also, 
 
 we have seen that doubt and bitter- 
 ness did not wholly overcome the spirit of laughter 
 and that a few writers still took time to describe the 
 eccentricities of Southern life. George William 
 
George William Bagby 259 
 
 Bagby (1828- 1 883) was something of a genius in 
 this form of literature. Who has not read Jud 
 Brownin's Account of Rubinstein's Playing? 
 
 Bagby was a Virginian who, after having received 
 a good education in the North, especially at the 
 University of Pennsylvania, went back to Richmond 
 to practise medicine, and there became a leader in 
 literary movements. Many newspapers and maga- 
 zines gladly accepted the humorous effusions of 
 "Mozis Addums," while as a witty lecturer he was 
 in still greater demand. During the first two years 
 of the Civil War he was editor of The Southern 
 Literary Messenger and later became State Librarian 
 of Virginia. Such was his enthusiasm for litera- 
 ture, that, like many other professional men of the 
 South, his avocation possessed a charm so strong 
 as to make his vocation of secondary interest. 
 
 Dr. Bagby displayed no small ability in his descrip- 
 tions of American life. Moreover, he had that 
 greatly sought-for faculty of clothing wisdom in 
 humor and thus poking sugar-coated sermons down 
 the throats of passive readers. Meekin's Twinses, 
 My Uncle Flatback's Plantation, and What I Did 
 with My Fifty Millions are typical of American 
 humor in their strong grasp of common sense and 
 in their scorn of subterfuge. But his most delight- 
 ful production is the account of Rubinstein's play- 
 ing. Doubtless no other bit of American humor has 
 held its place in public favor so persistently as has 
 this hilarious, topsy-turvy description; for today 
 it is more widely copied than ever before. And is 
 this fact to be wondered at ? 
 
 "When he first sot down he peared to keer mighty 
 little 'bout playin', and wished he hadn't come. He 
 tweedle-leedled a little on the trible, and twoodle- 
 oodle-oodled some on the bass — ^just foolin' and 
 boxin' the thing's jaws for bein' in his way. And 
 
260 The Novelists 
 
 I says to a man sittin' next to me, s' I, 'What sort of 
 fool playin' is that ?' And he says, 'Heish !' . . . 
 
 "Then the sun went down, it got dark, the wind 
 moaned and wept like a lost child for its dead mother, 
 and I could a-got up then and there and preached 
 a better sermon than any I ever listened to. There 
 wasn't a thing in the world left to live for, not a 
 blame thing, and yet I didn't want the music to stop 
 one bit. It was happier to be miserable than to be 
 happy without bein' miserable. . . . Then, all 
 of a sudden. Old Ruben changed his tune. He ripped 
 and he rar'd, he tipped and he tar'd, he pranced and 
 he charged like the grand entry at a circus. Feared 
 to me like all the gas in the house was turned on at 
 once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head, 
 ready to look any man in the face, and not afeard 
 of nothin'. ... He lit into them keys like a 
 thousand of brick, he gave 'em no rest, day nor 
 night; he set every living joint in me agoin', and 
 not bein' able to stand it no longer, I jumpt spang 
 onto my seat, and just hollered: 
 
 " 'Go it, my Rube!' " 
 
 THE NOVELISTS 
 
 The same unfortunate conditions that prevented 
 an admirable degree of perfection in the essay and 
 short story likewise hindered the high development 
 of the novel. One of the writers of the period, 
 Hinton R. Heifer of North Carolina, declared, "The 
 entire mind of the South either stultifies itself into 
 acquiescence with slavery, succumbs to its authority, 
 or chafes in indignant protest against its monstrous 
 pretensions and outrageous usurpations. A free 
 press is an institution almost unknown at the South. 
 Free speech is considered as treason against slavery ; 
 
Francis Robert Goulding 261 
 
 and when people dare neither speak nor print their 
 thoughts, free thought itself is well-nigh extin- 
 guished. . . . Slavery tends to sluggishness — 
 imbecility — inertia. Where free thought is treason, 
 the masses will not long take the trouble of thinking 
 at all. . . . The mind thus enslaved necessarily 
 loses its interest in the processes of other minds; 
 and its tendency is to sink down into absolute 
 stolidity or sottishness. Our remarks find melan- 
 choly confirmation in the abject servilism in which 
 multitudes of the non-slave-holding whites of the 
 South are involved. In them ambition, pride, self- 
 respect, hope seem alike extinct. Their slave-hold- 
 ing fellows are, in some respects, in a still more 
 unhappy condition — helpless, nerveless, ignorant, 
 selfish; yet vain-glorious, self-sufficient, and brutal. 
 Are these the chosen architects who are expected 
 to build up 'a purely Southern Literature' ?" 
 
 This, be it remembered, was from the pen of a 
 Southerner. It is not prejudice ; it is largely truth. 
 Yet, in spite of all, a few "chosen architects" did 
 indeed arise. How few they were, and how poor 
 some of their literary edifices ! Time, in mercy, has 
 covered their struggling efforts with the dust of 
 oblivion. The list of names presented in this study 
 mentions perhaps every one worthy of the attention 
 of posterity. 
 
 I 
 
 A book popular in this period and to some extent 
 still popular is The Young Marooners. Its author, 
 
 Francis Robert Goulding (i8io- 
 Francis 1881), was by vocation a clergyman; 
 
 Robert but his avocations perhaps brought 
 
 Goulding him more noteworthy successes. In 
 — 1842 he conceived the idea of the 
 
 (1810=>1881) sewing machine, and the instrument 
 
 that he constructed was in use one 
 year before Howe secured a patent for his famous 
 
262 Francis Robert Goulding 
 
 one. Goulding neglected taking out a patent because, 
 according to his own statement, he had on his mind 
 "more important affairs." Those more important 
 affairs were doubtless his duties as a pastor ; for 
 both he and his wife were intensely interested in 
 religious work. She it was who persuaded Dr. 
 Lowell Mason to write the music to From Green- 
 land's Icy Mountains, and its first presentation is 
 said to have been in the Independent Presbyterian 
 Church at Savannah, where Goulding was preaching. 
 
 During all the busy years of his ministry he found 
 time to write for several church papers and to publish 
 one or two small books of the old-fashioned Sunday 
 School library type. It was in 1852 that The 
 Young Maro oners appeared. Within a year three 
 American and two British editions had been pub- 
 lished. Its popularity among juvenile readers was 
 astonishing, and even during the Civil War, when 
 the author, broken in health and spirit, was being 
 driven from place to place, the sale in the North 
 continued to be large. The war over, he wrote a 
 sequel entitled Marooner's Island, and it, too, was ii 
 success. Then followed Frank Gordon, Sapelo, or 
 Child Life in the Tidewater, Nachoochee, and Tahle- 
 quah, all highly popular works in their day, but now 
 seldom read. 
 
 Only The Young Marooners has lasted, and with 
 its stirring events, its vivid descriptions, and its 
 go-away-to-sea sentiment, it deserves memory. It 
 has that detail, that accuracy, and that knack of pre- 
 senting strange, happy-go-lucky adventures which 
 have made Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family 
 Robinson world-books. 
 
Emma Southworth 263 
 
 II 
 
 In the ante-bellum days nearly every man, woman, 
 and child in the United States had heard mentioned 
 the name of Emma Southworth; 
 Emma today only the student of literature 
 
 Southworth knows anything at all about her. She 
 — represents a stage in the growth of 
 
 (1818= ) American tastes, a stage which has 
 been passed in the aesthetic develop- 
 ment of the people, thus leaving her almost readerless. 
 
 Contrary to most lives, hers was a youth full of 
 sorrow and an age full of contentment. She was 
 born in 1818 of French-English parentage, at Wash- 
 ington, D. C, and in or near that city much of her 
 life was spent. Perhaps she was too reserved and 
 yet too passionate to make herself beloved ; perhaps 
 the faults of her character were more evident than 
 those of others. However that may be, her child- 
 hood and early womanhood were cruelly marred, and 
 while yet young, the culmination came when, 
 deserted by her husband, she found her children 
 looking to her for support. Then it was, and for 
 their sake, not for literature's, that she began to 
 write. Amidst sorrow, humiliation, and privation, 
 she worked out her first plot and wrote with a vigor 
 and desperation born of the circumstances. Sud- 
 denly all of life changed before her. Her novel, 
 Retribution (1849), '^^^ accepted and was read by 
 thousands. "Friends crowded around me," she 
 writes ; "offers for contributions poured in upon me, 
 and I, who six months before had been poor, ill, 
 forsaken, slandered, killed by sorrow, privation, toil, 
 and f riendlessness, found myself born, as it were, into 
 a new life; found independence, sympathy, friend- 
 ship, and honour, and an occupation in which I could 
 delight." 
 
264 Emma South worth 
 
 From this time she wrote most voluminously — far 
 too rapidly for strong work. More than fifty 
 volumes stand today as an unread monument to her 
 industrious imagination. Yet they are not all bad ; 
 none are unreadable ; none indeed lack some fascina- 
 tion. But to call them "sensational" would be to 
 give but a mild description of them. Quarrels, 
 bloodshed, dark intrigue, murders, and mysterious 
 disappearances keep the blood of an excitable reader 
 tingling. Such fiction appeals to the lover of 
 "thrills." Not possessing the subtle power of Poe's 
 masterpieces, they emulate, to some degree, the 
 "creepy" effect of his productions. Their apparent 
 plausibility and, in part, artistically involved plots 
 lift them high above the level of the "yellow-back" 
 novel; for they do portray certain phases of life — 
 though extreme phases, it must be admitted. Yet, 
 she herself has claimed that not once did she have 
 to draw upon her imagination for the basis of a 
 single character. She has indeed chosen strange 
 specimens of humanity and thus called down the 
 critic's ire on the score of unreality ; but life is broad 
 and literature is broader, and the writer may choose 
 wherein to delve. 
 
 Retribution, The Fatal Marriage, The Haunted 
 Homestead, The Widoufs Son, and others that 
 charmed former generations do not affect the readers 
 of a more aesthetic period. The world has now 
 passed to another view of disaster. There may be 
 sorrows deeper than those of death; there may be 
 cruelty without bloodshed ; there may be a hell with- 
 out fire. Emma Southworth failed to deal with life 
 from this point of view. She dealt with physical 
 punishment and disaster, and not with those subtler 
 forms of soul- torture, which, though unseen, are 
 more deadly than the visible wound. 
 
Richard Malcolm Johnston 265 
 
 III 
 
 Such a tale as The Young Marooners or Retribu- 
 tion might have been written by a person from any 
 
 section of the Union. But the stories 
 Richard of the writer whom we shall now 
 
 Malcolm notice could be the work of only a 
 
 Johnston native of the South — and of the old, 
 — ante-bellum South at that. Richard 
 
 (1822= ) Malcolm Johnston reflects most 
 
 clearly that time and that section. 
 Born on a Georgia plantation, he grew up under the 
 old regime, learned to perceive the beautiful inner 
 life of its society, and lived to see it crumble away 
 in wretchedness and distress. His childhood, spent 
 among the picturesque scenes incident to the slavery 
 system, must have been extremely happy; for time 
 and time again he alludes to those days. "Some 
 time ago I went to the home-place, and an old negro 
 came eight miles, walked all the way, to see me. He 
 got to the house before five o'clock in the morning 
 and opened the shutters while I was asleep. With 
 a cry he rushed into the room, 'Oh, Massa Dick!' 
 We cried in each other's arms. We had been boys 
 together." 
 
 He attended a country school and later prepared 
 for college at a very fine private school then existing 
 at Powelton, Georgia — the "Dukesborough" of his 
 Dukeshorough Tales. After graduating at Mercer 
 College (1841) he taught school for two years and 
 then took up law, in which profession he remained 
 for ten years. All this time he was acquiring 
 bountiful material for the tales and character sketches 
 which were to bring him so near to the reading 
 public. The ten years of legal practise past, he 
 accepted the professorship of Belles-Lettres in the 
 University of Georgia ; but in so doing he rejected 
 positions of greater importance; the presidency of 
 
266 Richard Malcolm Johnston 
 
 Mercer College and a seat as Judge of the Superior 
 Court. During the four years spent in this work, 
 he wrote, with the aid of Dr. William H. Browne, the 
 well-known History of English Literature, a volume 
 of thorough scholarship and undoubted merit. Then 
 followed several years of private school work in 
 Georgia and near Baltimore, and at last came the 
 time when his reputation and income warranted his 
 giving himself entirely to the work so well beloved — 
 the writing of fiction. Dukesborough Tales, Old 
 Mark Langs ton, Mr. Absalom Billingslea and Other 
 Georgia Folk, Widow Guthrie, Mr. Billy Downs and 
 His Likes, Pearce Amer son's Will, and many other 
 hearty tales have gained for him not only the admir- 
 ation and honor but the very love of his readers. 
 He may be mentioned as an example of steady, unre- 
 mitting progress in literary excellence. 
 
 Johnston is first and last a writer of what he has 
 seen. The familiar phases of life and the joys of 
 the "good old times" are reflected in his every effort. 
 He lingers over homely life and homely characters. 
 And how his humor pervades all ! True to the life 
 that he has known, with its eccentric people, its old- 
 fashioned negroes, its gossipy villages, and its back- 
 woods settlements, he never fails to show by his 
 sympathetic touch, those common bonds of interest 
 that connect all human beings. 
 
 Although eccentricities, dialects, and customs 
 furnish much of the humor of these narratives, 
 perhaps the greater part is the result of incidents. 
 He loves to bring out an eccentricity by means of 
 some unimportant happening. Thus, in his Life of 
 Alexander H. Stephens, he tells of an old man who 
 was almost dead from fever. "The system of 
 Therapeutics in vogue at that time and in that section 
 included immense quantities of calomel, and rigor- 
 ously excluded cold water." The sufferer had 
 begged and begged. He threatened his slave, 
 
Richard Malcolm Johnston 267 
 
 Shadrach, with terrible punishment, but the negro, 
 believing that his master would die, was unmoved. 
 " 'Shadrach, my boy, you are a good nigger, 
 Shadrach. If you'll go now and fetch old master 
 a pitcher of nice cool water, I'll set you free and give 
 you Five Hundred Dollars!' And he dragged the 
 syllables slowly and heavily from his dry jaws, as 
 if to make the sum appear immeasurably vast. 
 
 "But Shadrach was proof against even this 
 temptation. . . . 
 
 "The old gentleman groaned and moaned. At 
 last he bethought him of one final stratagem. He 
 raised his head as well as he could, turned his hag- 
 gard face full upon Shadrach, and, glaring at him 
 from his hollow, bloodshot eyes, said : 
 
 " 'Shadrach, I am going to die, and it's because I 
 can't get any water. If you don't go and bring me 
 a pitcher of water, after I'm dead, I'll come back 
 and haunt you ! I'll haunt you as long as you live !' 
 
 " 'Oh Lordy! Master! You shall hab de water!' 
 cried Shadrach, and he rushed out to the spring. 
 
 "The next morning he was decidedly better, and, 
 to the astonishment of all, soon got well." 
 
 It has been mentioned that the humor of Johnston 
 rests partly on eccentricities in the characters which 
 he portrays. Who that has read Mr. Absalom 
 Billingslea and Other Georgia Folk will forget Mr. 
 Hood, with his vast veneration for age — "a virtue 
 that he professed to fear might die out before long" ? 
 What chagrin was his when he discovered that his 
 little son, Riley, had dared to contradict the great- 
 grandmother's Revolutionary memories ! 
 
 " 'Gittin' too smart, my young man, an' a danger 
 of too big for your breeches. People tells me you 
 so smart you go 'way up 'bove gran'ma, an' she 
 acknowledge she know notiiin' compar'd to you. . 
 
268 Richard Malcolm Johnston 
 
 " 'Yes, sir, smarter'n gran'ma ! that all the fambly 
 ben a-lookin' up to from all — from all generations, 
 sir, exceptin' o' you, sir. Now, sir, I'd be that proud 
 that they aint everybody I'd even speak to, if I could 
 believe you'd ever live to come anywhars nigh a-bein' 
 as smart a man as your gran'ma — er, as smart a 
 'oman — that is, as a — ' 
 
 "Here, feeling that Riley would laugh, if he dared, 
 at this confused comparison, he grew more incensed 
 and louder. 
 
 " 'Oh, yes, sir; you want to laugh, do you? But 
 you know who's who now; an' it aint gran'ma you 
 can conterdick an' run over, not by a jugful.' " 
 
 The wife interposed in the boy's behalf, and argues 
 for him : 
 
 " 'I was going on to say that when gran'ma — an' 
 bless her heart she know how / love her — but when 
 she went to Yorktown whar the British give up, right 
 thar by Danville, an' make the Jeems River an' the 
 Staunton, an' the Roanoke all a empt'in' clos't to 
 whar she lived an' into one another — ' " 
 
 But the irate husband attributes all the wife's 
 remarks to the boy. 
 
 " 'You inconsidible or'nary !' cried Mr. Hood, in 
 profoundest, angriest disgust. . . . 'What is 
 this generation of boys a-comin' to ?' " 
 
 The plot in Johnston's stories is sometimes loose 
 in structure; perhaps, too, there is a certain lack of 
 sequence in incidents ; but there is that which covers 
 many defects — trueness to life. The slow, leisurely 
 characters, their quaint ways and ideas, their humble 
 relations toward one another and to life, and, above 
 all, the simple, sure touch of realness that pervades 
 each scene give a satisfaction exceeding that gained 
 by mere artistic finish. Richard Malcolm Johnston 
 has not written that which will place him with a 
 Hawthorne or a Poe; nevertheless, there will be a 
 smile for him in generations to come. 
 
Sarah Anne Dorsey 269 
 
 IV 
 
 In the period now before us, writers of the quality 
 of Richard Malcolm Johnston were the exception, 
 not the rule. Mediocrity had many 
 Sarah Anne a votive, and few indeed were the 
 Dorsey men and women who rose superior 
 
 — to it. Among those few was Sarah 
 
 (1829=1879) Anne Dorsey (1829-1879). Her 
 work is not great; much of it is not 
 permanent ; but it possesses qualities that in her day 
 lifted it above the level, and influenced to no small 
 extent the ideas and tastes of Southern readers and 
 authors. Her maiden-name, Ellis, was well known 
 throughout her native State, Mississippi, and the 
 large means of her family and the general culture of 
 the society in which they moved gave her enviable 
 advantages. She received a good education, trav- 
 eled extensively, and became a brilliant and versatile 
 woman. 
 
 In 1853, when she married Samuel Dorsey, of 
 Louisiana, and removed to that State, her intellectual 
 strength showed itself in most practical ways. For, 
 seeing the absolute degradation into which the slaves 
 of her section had been allowed to sink, she estab- 
 lished on her plantation a church and a school for 
 them, and thereby set an example by which her 
 neighbors were not slow to profit. The Churchman 
 (New York) became interested in her experiments 
 and gave her the name "Filia Ecclesiae," and "Filia" 
 she henceforth used as a pen-name. During the war 
 her home was destroyed and her means greatly 
 reduced, and before the effects of these calamities 
 had passed away, her husband died. Her last days 
 were .spent at her former home, Beauvoir, Missis- 
 sippi, — the property which she left to Jefferson Davis. 
 
270 Sarah Anne Dorsey 
 
 It was for The Churchman, that she did her first 
 work; but the best of her productions appeared in 
 The Southern Literary Messenger and other South- 
 ern journals. Agnes Graham was published in The 
 Southern Literary Messenger in 1863, but was not 
 put in book form until nearly seven years later ; while 
 The Vivians and Chastine were given to the public 
 in serial form. Panola, A Tale of Louisiana and 
 Atalie enjoyed wide popularity in her day. Perhaps 
 only one of her stories, Lucia Dore, a war novel 
 published in 1867, failed to be a success. And, yet, 
 one character in it, Jennie, the negress, is doubtless 
 the finest character she ever portrayed. Perhaps 
 the gloomy days succeeding the conflict had changed 
 the mood of the Southern reader ; perhaps the South- 
 ern reader had for the time being become almost 
 extinct; but, whatever the cause, the vivacity, the 
 pithiness, and the generally interesting plot of the 
 tale did not save it. 
 
 But one volume most decidedly did attract — her 
 Life of Governor Allen of Louisiana. There are not 
 a great many biographies written by Americans sur- 
 passing this one. Full of life, yet accurate, it gives 
 us the man and not his dead image. As a magazine 
 criticism of the time said, "Governor Allen is a flesh- 
 and-blood likeness, not a coldly accurate, inanimate 
 portrait, the features perfect, but the expression 
 wanting." Unlike many American biographies of 
 the ante-bellum type, it is free from far-stretched, 
 extravagant praise, free from all attempts to make a 
 god of an erring human being. 
 
 There is in this biography a pathos that may be 
 appreciated by both North and South, after these 
 years of peace. At the close of the Civil War Gov- 
 ernor Allen is an exile oh his way to Mexico: 
 
 "Everything was very quiet and still, nothing 
 audible but the low murmur of our voices, when 
 
Sarah Anne Dorsey 271 
 
 suddenly arose from the prairie beyond me, one of 
 the beautiful, plaintive, cattle or 'salt' songs of 
 Texas. These wild, simple melodies had a great 
 attraction for me. I would often check my horse 
 on the prairies, and keep him motionless for a half- 
 hour, listening to these sweet, melancholy strains. 
 Like all cattle-calls, they are chiefly minor. . . . 
 They consist of a few chanted chords with a cadence 
 and a long yodl. . . . The boy sang one of his 
 saddest calls. I looked quickly to see if Governor 
 Allen had noticed the melancholy words and mourn- 
 ful air. I saw he had. He ceased talking, and his 
 face was very grave. 
 "The boy sang : 
 
 'Going away to leave you, 
 
 Ah-a-a-a. 
 Going away to leave you, 
 
 Ah-a-a-a. 
 Going away tomorrow, 
 
 Ah-a-a-a. 
 Going away tomorrow, 
 
 Ah-a-a-a. 
 Never more to see you, 
 
 Ah-a-a-a. 
 Never more to see you, 
 
 Ah-a-a-a.' 
 
 ". . . The song died mournfully away. We 
 drove on in silence for a few moments. Governor 
 Allen roused himself, with a sigh— 'That boy's song 
 is very sad.' 
 
 " '. . . You need not make special application 
 
 of it!' 
 
 " 'No ; but it may prove a strange coincidence.' " 
 With such tragedy in real life, tragedy in fiction 
 
 was superfluous. Some cynic has said that people 
 
 talk most of the things which they know the least 
 
 about. 
 
272 Marion Harland 
 
 V 
 
 During the same years that Mrs. Dorsey was 
 doing her early Hterary work, another Southern 
 Marion woman, of almost the same age, had 
 
 Harland already gained recognition as a writer 
 
 of no small talent, and was rapidly 
 (1831= ) maturing into an artistic strength that 
 today gives her a permanently high place among 
 American writers. The name, Marion Harland, 
 is familiar to most American readers; but her real 
 name, Mary Virginia Terhume, is practically 
 unknown. She was born near Richmond, Virginia, 
 in Amelia county, where her father, a native of Mas- 
 sachusetts, kept a store. She was a precocious child, 
 and, under the training of her ambitious mother, 
 she absorbed to an almost incredible degree the spirit . 
 of that which is best in literature. At the age of 
 eleven she had committed to memory large portions 
 of such poems as Paradise Lost, Thomson's Seasons 
 and Cowper's Task, while such works as Pilgrim's 
 Progress and Plutarch's Lives were favorite 
 volumes. 
 
 At fourteen she was contributing to weekly 
 papers; at sixteen she had written her Marrying 
 Through Prudential Motives for Godey's Lady's 
 Book. She was not yet twenty-two when her first 
 novel. Alone, received wide attention, and before 
 the age when most women are just reaching prepara- 
 tion for a life-work, she had gained a secure and 
 high position in her chosen field. In 1856 she mar- 
 ried a minister, Mr. Edward Terhume, of New 
 York, and three years later she removed to the 
 North. Yet her choice of themes is Southern life, 
 and in that she shows her good judgment; for she 
 knows the subject as few have ever known it. 
 
Marion Harland 273 
 
 The number of her volumes is large, and yet, in 
 spite of her voluminous productions, there is power 
 in the greater part of her work. Moreover, much 
 of her writing shows but little sign of waning pop- 
 ularity. Indeed, Sunnyhank, Mirian, Judith, Husks, 
 The Story of Mary Washington, and one or two 
 others bid fair to be permanent gifts to American 
 Literature. The Story of Mary Washington, written 
 to aid in the erection of a monument to the mother 
 of Washington, is remarkable for its insight into 
 the life, environments, and influences of the great 
 leader. It bears the same traits as are evident in her 
 novels — simplicity, liveliness, a convincing way of 
 saying things, and a face-to-face manner of telling 
 the story. Note but a few lines from the book. 
 Washington has gained freedom for his country, 
 and now, at a Peace Ball, held at Fredericksburg, 
 his mother is honored as his mother. 
 
 "A path was opened from the foot to the top of 
 the hall as they appeared in the doorway, and 'every 
 head was bowed in reverence.' It must have been 
 the proudest moment of her life, but she bore her- 
 self with perfect composure then and after her son, 
 seating her in an arm-chair upon the dais reserved 
 for distinguished guests, faced the crowd in prideful 
 expectancy that all his friends would seek to know 
 his mother. . . . From her slightly elevated 
 position she could, without rising, overlook the floor, 
 and watched with quiet pleasure the dancers, among 
 them the kingly figure of the commander-in-chief, 
 who led a Fredericksburg matron through a minuet. 
 
 "At ten o'clock she signed to him to approach, 
 and rose to take his arm, saying in her clear soft 
 voice, 'Come, George, it is time for old folks to be 
 at home.' Smiling a good-night to all, she walked 
 down the room, as erect in form and as steady in 
 gait as any dancer there. 
 
274 Marion Harland 
 
 "One of the French officers exclaimed aloud, as 
 she disappeared : 
 
 "'If such are the matrons of America, she may 
 well boast of illustrious sons !' " 
 
 Marion Harland has attempted several kinds of 
 story-telling, and she has been effective in all. She 
 has both tenderness and strength. She seems to 
 know how to use all the means known to literary 
 craftsmanship. The ghost-story in Judith, for 
 instance, is a narrative that possesses something of 
 the Poe-like art of terror. One will not soon forget 
 how, year after year, the ghost of a woman came to 
 Madame Trueheart's bed — the same ghost that had 
 frightened Colonel Trueheart's first wife; how, the 
 night before his death, the ghost searched hither and 
 thither throughout the room, and how years and 
 years later, when the old mansion was torn down, 
 the skeleton of a woman was found, without coffin, 
 without sign of decent burial. 
 
 Such bits of artistic narrative as this, the descrip- 
 tion of early Virginia Hfe, the simplicity, and the 
 lack of strained effects have given to her writings 
 no small emotional force. She suffers but little from 
 the besetting sins of so many of the earlier Southern 
 writers — lack of subtlety, and silence on the greater 
 questions of life ; for she has attempted to solve some 
 at least of these ever-present problems. Her vol- 
 ume, Common-Sense in the Household (1871) has 
 sent a much-needed message into many a vexed 
 home. Being a woman of purpose and elevated 
 ideals, she speaks with sincerity. "I believe it is 
 possible," she has said, "to elevate household drud- 
 gery into a mission, to make home the center of 
 thought and duty, and yet help the toilers in other 
 homes." But beyond such, of course, are the ten- 
 derness, the truth, the vivid characterization, and 
 the romantic quality of her fiction. In these things 
 she is indeed an artist. 
 
John Esten Cooke 275 
 
 VI 
 
 Perhaps the most widely known and most popular 
 novehst the South has ever had was John Esten 
 
 Cooke (1830- 1886). In his early 
 John work imitative to some degree, in his 
 
 Esten later productions hasty unto negli- 
 
 Cooke gence, he nevertheless possesses quali- 
 
 — ties that lift him high above the com- 
 
 (1830-1886) mon run of fiction writers and make 
 
 him at his best, the companion of 
 Irving and Cooper. In not a few ways he resembles 
 these two men; for he unites in his writings the 
 gentler traits of the one with the more strenuous 
 character of the other. A love of lingering descrip- 
 tion and the charm of wild activity are in him well 
 mingled. 
 
 He was born at Winchester, Virginia, in 1830 
 and, like his brother, Philip Pendleton Cooke, the 
 author of Florence Vane, enjoyed exceptional advan- 
 tages in mental endowment, environment, and 
 opportunities for general culture. The father, John 
 Roger Cooke, was in his day perhaps the strongest 
 lawyer in the State, and the son, having chosen the 
 same profession might easily have gained a lucra- 
 tive practice. But John Esten Cooke had none of 
 the father's love for the court-room, and, although 
 he did indeed open an office, he used it mainly for 
 the writing of poems and fiction. We may fairly 
 say that he gained precious little from his vocation 
 but much from his avocation. At the age of twenty- 
 four he had become rather widely known through 
 some of his fiction, especially Leather Stockings and 
 Silk, and Virginia Comedians. At length he gave up 
 entirely the attempt to be both lawyer and writer, 
 and henceforth his whole time was devoted to litera- 
 ture. With the outbreak of war he entered the 
 
276 John Esteti Cooke 
 
 Confederate army and during the last years of the 
 campaign was Inspector General of the horse artillery 
 of the Army of Northern Virginia. Paroled at the 
 surrender, he once more returned to the quiet but 
 industrious life that he so much preferred. 
 
 Of course, as a Virginian, he wrote of the beloved 
 Mother of States. That it was indeed beloved may 
 be inferred from his words concerning his home: 
 "I would rather pass my time quietly here at 'The 
 Briars' in the beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah 
 than rule a nation." From his first to his last novel, 
 the trend of his efforts never varied. "His aim was 
 to paint the Virginia phase of American society, 
 and to do for the 'Old Dominion' what Cooper had 
 done for the Indians, what Hawthorne had done 
 for the Puritans, what Simms had done for South 
 Carolina, and what Irving had done for the Dutch." 
 
 Now, like most American novelists, he wrote much 
 that has perished. Some of his stories are not read 
 today; some are not even heard of; but, when all 
 this is said, there remain for posterity such perma- 
 nent works as Virginia Comedians, Stories of the 
 Old Dominion, Surrey of Eagle's Nest, Henry St. 
 John, Gentleman, and Hilt to Hilt. These, by their 
 vividness, their forceful characters, and the very 
 power of their movement, will not soon pass away. 
 
 It has been mentioned that there is in him a love 
 of lingering description. How he delights in the 
 scenes of colonial days, — the horse-racing, the stately 
 dances, the contests between fiddlers, the barbecues, 
 and all the other quaint elements of that curiously 
 hearty but cultured society! For an evidence of 
 this, note but a few lines from a description of a 
 horse race in the Virginia Comedians: 
 
 "As the day draws on, the crowd becomes more 
 dense. The splendid chariots of the gentry roll up 
 to the stand, and group themselves around it, in a 
 
John Esten Cooke 277 
 
 position to overlook the race-course, and through 
 the wide windows are seen the sparkhng eyes and 
 powdered locks, and diamonds and gay silk and vel- 
 vet dresses of those fair dames who lent such rich- 
 ness and picturesque beauty to the old days, dead 
 now so long ago in the far past. The fine-looking 
 old planters, too, are decked in their holiday suits, 
 their powdered hair is tied into queues behind with 
 neat black ribbon, and they descend and mingle with 
 their neighbors, and discuss the coming festival. 
 
 "Gay youths in rich brilliant dresses caracole up 
 to the carriages on fiery steeds, to display their horse- 
 manship, and exchange compliments with their 
 friends, and make pretty speeches, which are received 
 by the bright-eyed damsels with little ogles, and 
 flirts of their variegated fans, and rapturous delight. 
 
 ". . . There are gay parties of the yeomen 
 and their wives and daughters, in carryalls and 
 wagons filled with straw, upon which chairs are 
 placed ; there are rollicking fast men . . . who 
 whirl in, in their curricles. . . . There are 
 horsemen who lean forward, horsemen who lean 
 back; furious, excited horsemen, urging their steeds 
 with whip and sput-; cool, quiet horsemen who ride 
 erect and slowly; there are, besides pedestrians 
 of every class and appearance, old and young, male 
 and female, black and white — all going to the races." 
 
 Thus he takes the quaint phases of the old life, of 
 the Virginia life when it was in its bloom, when 
 Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, the Ran- 
 dolphs, the Lees, and a host of others whose names 
 are household words, lived and wrought for the 
 nation. True to nature, as he saw it, he is picturesque 
 at all times. 
 
 Whether he is always true to life is an open ques- 
 tion ; for the stricture is too frequently true of him, 
 as of those he unconsciously imitated, that "wizards, 
 
278 John Esten Cooke 
 
 gloomy barons, French dancing masters, fair young 
 maidens, lamiae, Christian big-Injuns, savage half- 
 breeds, secret panels, mysterious packages, thunder, 
 duelling, and desperation are thrown into the caul- 
 dron, stirred with a pen, and spiced with genuine 
 love for the grand old Blue Ridge and romantic 
 Massanutten." That he does love wild scenes can- 
 not be denied ; the healthy blood of a new race was 
 in him. Yet the spirit that rushes and swirls in many 
 of his narratives is higher than that of mere violence. 
 Thus, in The Virginia Bohemians, the description 
 of a fight with the moonshiners has a dramatic qual- 
 ity that mere bombast and sensationalism can never 
 impart. The moonshiners have barricaded them- 
 selves in a narrow mountain-pass; the militia have 
 found them. 
 
 " 'Halt !' the lieutenant's voice was heard shouting, 
 as he whirled his light sabre. 'Form column in rear : 
 I'll soon attend to this.' 
 
 "The men stopped and fell into column again, 
 just beyond range of the fire of the barricade. 
 
 "'Dismount and deploy skirmishers: Advance 
 on both flanks and in front ! I'll be in the center.' 
 
 ". . . Then, at the ringing 'Forward* . . . 
 the skirmishers closed in steadily, firing as they did 
 so on the barricade. 
 
 ". . . Nature was pitiless and serene ; the red 
 crowns were rising peacefully from the summits of 
 the trees; a crow was winging his way toward the 
 summit on slow wings ; it was a scene to soothe dying 
 eyes if the light needs must disappear from them. 
 
 "In ten minutes it had disappeared from more 
 than one on both sides. . . . The crack of the 
 sharp-shooters was answered from behind the barri- 
 cade, and the gorge was full of smoke and shouts 
 as the assailants closed in. . . . In the shadowy 
 gorge the figures were only half seen as the light 
 
John Esten Cooke 279 
 
 faded, and the long thunder of the carbines and 
 shouting rolled through the mountain, awaking 
 lugubrious echoes in the mysterious depths." 
 
 However weak in some respects Cooke may be, 
 he is an admirable character-builder. In his earlier 
 work he was in full sympathy with Cooper and 
 Simms in that he had great admiration for the 
 "natural" man. In his first volume, Leather Stock- 
 ings, and Silk (1854) the leading figure is Hunter 
 John Myers, a huge, rough, yet wholesome and pure 
 man, uncultured but admirable in strength and man- 
 liness. But he does not fail to see the beauty of 
 which the cultured soul is capable, and therein, 
 especially in his portrayal of the gentle yet cour- 
 ageous spirit of woman, he far surpasses Cooper. 
 Few indeed are the female characters in American 
 fiction more lovable and more touchingly pictured 
 than Beatrice Hallam, the actress, in Virginia Come- 
 dians. For another instance of this mingling of 
 strength and elegance, that strongest of all his char- 
 acters, Henry St. John, is worthy of praise. Using 
 large canvases for his portrayals of society, the char- 
 acters that he creates are ever distinct, vivid, 
 intensely living. 
 
 His faults, it has been hinted, are plain. He too 
 often lapses into sentimentality; he sometimes mis- 
 takes bravado for bravery ; he is tainted with sensa- 
 tionalism; he is often too romantic; he does not at 
 all times face squarely the sterner phases of life ; he 
 is frequently in haste; he forgets, in his interest in 
 the tale, the demands of art. And, in spite of it all, 
 his work is good — it is excellent. The words of 
 praise bestowed upon Virginia Comedians might 
 be applied most justly to others of his many volumes : 
 "The whole book is redolent of youth and poetic 
 susceptibility to the beauties of nature, the charms 
 of women, and the quick movement of life." He is 
 
280 John Esten Cooke 
 
 ever cheerful; hope never leaves him. Even in 
 Surrey of Eagle's Nest, written in 1866, when the 
 South was one vast field of wretchedness and despair, 
 there is the same strong call for courage and a belief 
 in a future victory. Such a writer could not have 
 come at a more needed time. 
 
 Why, then, has his fame diminished ? The ques- 
 tion is answered in his own words: "Mr. Howells 
 and the other realists have crowded me out of the 
 popular regard as a novelist, and have brought the 
 kind of fiction I write into general disfavor. I do 
 not complain of that, for they are right. They see, 
 as I do, that fiction should faithfully reflect life, and 
 they obey the law, while I was born too soon and 
 am now too old to learn my trade anew. But in 
 literature, as in everything else, advance should be 
 the law, and he who stands still has no right to 
 complain if he is left behind." Such indeed is the 
 cause of his neglect. He was essentially a romanti- 
 cist, not a realist. He did not write to prove theories ; 
 he was simply a teller of stories. Unlike the later 
 fiction, his tales do not blindly follow where a merci- 
 less destiny leads them ; for he at all times considers 
 it best that his characters should "live happy ever 
 afterwards." 
 
 Perhaps, if the people were asked, it would be 
 found that the human heart still hungers for such 
 a story. Perhaps they would say, with Burne- 
 Jones : "Don't lend me any sad stories — no, not if 
 they are masterpieces. I cannot afford to be made 
 unhappy. . . . There would be a beautiful 
 woman in it — all that is best in a woman, and she 
 would be miserable and love some trumpery frip 
 (as they do) and die finding out she had been a 
 fool — and it would be beautifully written and full 
 of nature and just like life, and I couldn't bear it. 
 These books are written for the hard-hearted, to 
 
Augusta Evans Wilson 281 
 
 melt them into a softer mood for once before they 
 congeal again — as much music is written — not for 
 poets but for stockjobbers, to wring iron tears from 
 them for once; that is the use of sorrowful art, to 
 penetrate the thick hide of the obtuse. . . . 
 Look ! tell me it ends well and the two lovers marry 
 and are happy ever afterwards and I'll read it grate- 
 fully." 
 
 VII 
 
 It may be seen that in the literature of this period 
 woman took a more prominent part than in any 
 
 previous era. The scanty list of 
 Augusta fiction writers deemed worthy of our 
 
 Evans attention here has contained almost as 
 
 Wilson many names of female writers as of 
 
 — male ; and our study may justly close 
 
 (1835= ) with a feminine name, Augusta 
 
 Evans Wilson (1835- ). In so 
 doing, we leave unnoticed the work of St. George 
 Tucker (i 828-1 863), whose Hansford deals with 
 the very beginnings of American life ; Caroline Lee 
 Hents, author of The Planter's Northern Bride; and 
 others whose attempts portray the Southern phase 
 of American life. But these "attempts" were, for 
 the most part, so crude or so lacking in influence 
 upon Southern Literature that we cannot profitably 
 linger over them. Already charity has indeed been 
 strained in giving space to as many as have been 
 discussed. 
 
 Augusta Evans Wilson is by birth a Georgian, for 
 she was born at Columbus in that State ; but most of 
 her life has been spent at Mobile, Alabama. Early 
 in her youth she removed with her parents to San 
 Antonio, Texas, and in that sparsely settled country, 
 with no educational advantages whatever in it, she 
 received, nevertheless, a remarkably good education 
 
282 Augusta Evans Wilson 
 
 from her highly cultured mother. It was in this 
 town, also, that her imagination was first aroused 
 to the creative pitch. The Mexican War was on, 
 and the constant coming and going of soldiers, the 
 brilliancy of the military environments, and the 
 general tingle of excitement in all about her sug- 
 gested to her a story, and at the age of fifteen she 
 wrote Inez, A Tale of the Alamo, published in 1855, 
 one year after John Esten Cooke had begun his rapid 
 production of fiction. Inez was good work for a 
 girl of fifteen; but when that is said, praise should 
 cease. As a Southern reviewer said, shortly after 
 its publication, "there is not a natural character and 
 scarcely a natural phase in the whole volume." 
 
 Four years later came Beulah, and with it success 
 for the author. For the book caused a great sensa- 
 tion and indeed deserved to do so. The heroine is 
 independent, sceptical, and unhappy, seeking with 
 bold, determined mind for the truth concerning God 
 and the Soul. As it attacked the questions fearlessly, 
 and as it was free from the besetting sin of early 
 Southern fiction — sentimentality, the book was 
 indeed a strong effort and was worthy of wide dis- 
 cussion. For a time the Civil War drew her atten- 
 tion from literary work; but amidst a multitude of 
 unfavorable circumstances she at length completed 
 another book, Mocaria (1864), and sent it through 
 the blockade to Havana to be forwarded to her pub- 
 lisher at New York. But in the meantime she had 
 allowed a Richmond printing-house to publish a 
 hasty edition for the aid of the Southern cause, and, 
 a copy of this having fallen into the hands of a 
 Northern printer, the book was pirated, and the 
 usual pecuniary reward long denied her. Mocaria is 
 another story of the trials and tribulations of a 
 thinking soul. Here again there is a suffering 
 woman, with, this time, a suffering man toiling along 
 a parallel course. There is supposed to be a final 
 
Augusta Evans Wilson 283 
 
 triumph — such is evidently the author's meaning — 
 but every discriminating reader closes the volume 
 with the conviction that here is too much pain, too 
 much sorrow — more than the reward is worth. As 
 Dr. Davidson wrote in his Living Writers of the 
 South ( 1869), "there is too much iron in the book." 
 
 Soon after the close of the war came St. Elmo. 
 Who has not heard of St. Elmo? In the early 
 seventies the words were on every one's lips. "Towns, 
 hotels, steamboats, and plantations were named after 
 it." Overloaded with bits of learning from far and 
 strange sources, undoubtedly weakened by what is 
 perhaps an unconscious pedantry, the story, never- 
 theless, possesses a beauty of plot, a strange strength 
 in its characters and an attractiveness of thought 
 that give it undeniable charm. It is doubtful 
 whether any American book has been more widely 
 discussed. Critics lauded it; critics condemned it. 
 The characters were ideal ! The characters were too 
 learned ! The heroine was a model ! The heroine 
 was too scholastic ! But critics have never ruled the 
 reading public of America. What praise did not do 
 for the sale of St. Elmo, harsh criticism did, and 
 every man, woman, and child in the Union seemed 
 anxious to read it. Month after month editions sold 
 as quickly as they came from the press. 
 
 The future work of Mrs. Wilson was now awaited 
 most eagerly. Before her next novel, Vashti 
 (1869), went to press a check for fifteen thousand 
 dollars was sent to her, and such liberality was indeed 
 warranted ; for the sale in both America and England 
 was enormous. But now there came a sudden 
 cessation of her work. In 1868 she had married 
 Mr. L. M. Wilson of Mobile, and he, seeing how the 
 constant labor was sapping the vitality of her weak 
 frame, begged her to cease from further efforts. 
 For ten years not one story was penned. Then, 
 after the death of her husband, came Imfelice and 
 
284 Augusta Evans Wilson 
 
 At the Mercy of Tiberius. Again there was a silence 
 of many years, until in the openine days of the 
 twentieth century there appeared another decided 
 success, The Speckled Bird. 
 
 It is somewhat difficult to be fair to such a writer. 
 That her work is brilliant cannot be denied. It 
 makes its readers think and they enjoy the process; 
 it contains beauty of sentiment; there is a certain 
 aloofness from commonness; there is the ever- 
 persisting effort to solve the higher mysteries. But 
 there are such evident defects — the tone of unnatural- 
 ness caused by the too frequent reference to remote 
 learning, "the dash of display," the undue amount 
 of argumentation, and the "over-profuseness" of 
 the conversation. History, mythology, and biogra- 
 phy are, of course, good for fiction when used spar- 
 ingly; but they should not cast their weight upon 
 every line of the narrative. Glance at these sentences 
 taken from but twelve or fifteen lines of 5"^. Elmo : 
 
 "The mantle of Solomon did not fall at Le Cayla 
 on the shoulders of Maurice de Guerin." 
 
 "After all, he was a wretched hypochondriac, and 
 a tinge of le cahier vert doubtless crept into his eyes." 
 
 "Pardon me, if I remind you, par parenthese, of 
 the preliminary and courteous En garde! which 
 should be pronounced before a thrust." 
 
 "I have passed alike the bourrans of the steppes, 
 and the Samieli of Shamo, and the result of my 
 vandal life is best epitomized in those grand but grim 
 words of Bossuet : 'On trove au fond du tout le vide 
 et le neant!' " 
 
 "Human life is as fair and tempting as the fruit 
 of 'Aim Jidy' till stung and poisoned by the 
 Tenthredo of sin." 
 
 But, in spite of this defect, the style often rings 
 with a clear eloquence. Her descriptive ability is 
 not to be gainsaid. The description in St. Elmo of 
 the great tomb, Taj Mahal, in India, erected to the 
 
Augusta Evans Wilson 285 
 
 memory of that Noormahal whom Tom Moore has 
 immortalized in Lalla Rookh, is now famous in many 
 lands. Even if, at times, the scenes are too gloomy 
 and forlorn, their power must be acknowledged. A 
 few lines from Beulah will serve as an illustration : 
 
 "She slowly ascended to the third story. . . . 
 From this elevated position she could see the stormy, 
 sullen waters of the bay breaking against the 
 wharves, and hear their hoarse mutterings as they 
 rocked themselves to rest after the scourging of the 
 tempest. Gray clouds hung low and scudded north- 
 ward; everything looked dull and gloomy. She 
 turned from the window and glanced around the 
 room. . . . Here were the paintings and statues 
 she had long been so familiar with, and here, too, the 
 melodeon which at rare intervals she opened. The 
 house was very quiet; not a sound came up from 
 below ; she raised the lid of the instrument and played 
 a plaintive prelude. ... As her trembling 
 voice rolled through the house, she seemed to live 
 the old days over again. . . . The marble 
 images around her, like ghosts of the past, looked 
 mutely down at her grief. She could not weep. . . 
 Just before her stood the Niobe, rigid and woeful; 
 she put her hands over her eyes and drooped her face 
 on the melodeon. . . . The wind rose and 
 howled round the corners of the house ; how fierce it 
 might be on trackless seas, driving lonely barks down 
 to ruin, and strewing the main with ghastly, upturned 
 faces." 
 
 There is a peculiarity about the figures that move 
 to and fro in her works. Although the reader 
 realizes that he never has seen just such characters, 
 he feels, at the same time, their strength, beauty and 
 uplifting influence. Perhaps these beings of the 
 novelist's imagination are a bit too formal. Perhaps, 
 too, "the hero quotes Latin, without translating it, 
 to his aged mother, and again to a girl in her earlier 
 
286 Poetry 
 
 teens," and both come back at him with overwhelm- 
 ing quotations from theology or history. But there 
 are no weaklings among them. They may be fight- 
 ing what they know to be a hopeless battle with 
 destiny; but they fight on. Such novels should 
 delight the aggressive and strengthen the hesitating. 
 Iron is indeed an element in the make-up of the men 
 and women of these volumes. 
 
 But, after all, perhaps the most valuable element 
 in Mrs. Wilson's works is the living thought that 
 pervades the whole. She has not hesitated to attack 
 fearlessly the mightiest questions of human life. 
 There is a most decided tone in every word. Of 
 doubtful assertions there are few ; but there is indeed 
 much in the nature of a challenge. All that she has 
 written, with the exception of Inez, possesses a 
 certain trait of practicalness — a bold attempt to see 
 what is "true and righteous altogether." Here, then, 
 is something with a new view, a something very, 
 different from the efforts of Simms, or Cooke, or 
 Mrs. Terhume. The ideals of intellectual life are 
 striven for ; these are stories of soul-struggles. Even 
 if strained at times, they have, nevertheless, the tone 
 of sincerity, the uplifting influence of an earnest 
 searcher for truth. 
 
 POETRY 
 
 I 
 
 One would think that in those years of bitter 
 sectional feeling and bloody strife and final wide- 
 spread desolation, poetry could not have flourished ; 
 and to no small degree such a supposition is true. 
 But, as has been noted earlier, war has called forth 
 ffom nations remarkable bursts of poetry, especially 
 lyric poetry. The Revolution brought forth a few 
 songs as did the War of 1812 and the Mexican War; 
 
Poetry 287 
 
 but it remained for the Civil War to be the great 
 inspiration for lyrics of battle. Unfortunately for 
 the Southern Confederacy, the North had more great 
 singers than did the South. While Bryant, Whittier, 
 Longfellow, Lowell, Walt Whitman, Boker, and a 
 host of others were arousing their comrades, the 
 South was comparatively silent. Not wholly silent, 
 be it remembered, but comparatively so. 
 
 Doubtless the racy song, Dixie, was the most 
 popular lyric in the Southern ranks, and, yet, strange 
 to say, it is the production of a Northerner. Written 
 in 1859 by Daniel Emmett, a native of Ohio, it was 
 sung on the minstrel stages of New York nearly two 
 years before its first rendition in the South, in a New 
 Orleans theatre. Equally strange are the instances 
 of Old Kentucky Home and Swanee River written 
 by Stephen Foster (1826- 1864), a native of Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 Now, in the Union camp a large number of airs 
 soon became widely popular. Naturally every band 
 played Yankee Doodle, another strange instance, in 
 that it was written by a British surgeon in derision 
 of the American soldiers, and was soon taken up by 
 them as a camp-song. Among the many lyrics heard 
 in every Union regiment were John Brown's Body 
 Lies A-Mouldering in the Grave (1861), with its 
 defiant words : 
 
 "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 
 John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 
 John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 
 His soul is marching on!" 
 
 We Are Coming, Father Ahra'am, Three Hundred 
 Thousand More, written by James Sloan Gibbons; 
 the truly inspiring Battle Cry of Freedom, by George 
 Frederick Root : 
 
 "Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again, 
 
 Shouting the battle cry of Freedom; 
 We'll rally from the hill-side, we'll gather from the plain, 
 
 Shouting the battle cry of Freedom 1" 
 
288 Poetry 
 
 the jovial When Johnny Comes Marching Home, by- 
 Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore: 
 
 "The men will cheer, the boys will shout, 
 The ladies, they will all turn out. 
 And we'll all feel gay. 
 When Johnny comes marching home !" 
 
 and that now classical hymn, written in 1861 by 
 Julia Ward Howe : 
 
 "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; 
 He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 
 
 are stored; 
 He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible sword ; 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
 With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me : 
 As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. 
 While God is marching on." 
 
 Later in the strife came Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, 
 the Boys Are Marching, written by George Root; 
 Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, by Walter 
 Kittredge, with its sorrowful chorus : 
 
 "Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, 
 
 Wishing for the war to cease. 
 Many are the hearts, looking for the right, 
 To see the dawn of peace." 
 
 and the highly popular Marching Through Georgia, 
 by Henry Clay Work. These are but a few of the 
 songs that strengthened the hearts of the Northerners 
 in one of the deadliest struggles the world has ever 
 known. 
 
 What songs were written for the Confederate 
 brave during those dark days? Small indeed is the 
 number. Many melodies were sung in camp, of 
 course; but most of them were old lyrics that had 
 been known throughout the South for years, and of 
 the small number composed during the conflict, a 
 very, very few became widely known and popular. 
 
Poetry 289 
 
 Dixie, as has been mentioned, was heard in every 
 camp. Various State-songs were revived. But not 
 many lyrics actually lending themselves to music 
 were produced. Albert Pike wrote, during the first 
 days of hostility, his stirring Southrons, Hear Your 
 Country Call You; but this was an exhortation 
 rather than a song. Some unknown Virginian wrote 
 a popular piece. Call All, beginning : 
 
 "Whoop ! The Doodles have broken loose." 
 
 And still another Virginian, whose name is unknown, 
 wrote The Soldier Boy: 
 
 "I gave my soldier boy a blade, 
 
 In fair Damascus fashioned well ; 
 Who first the glittering falchion swayed, 
 
 Who first beneath its fury fell, 
 I know not ; but I hope to know 
 
 That for no mean nor hireling trade, 
 To guard no feeling base or low, 
 
 I gave my soldier boy a blade." 
 
 One that every camp resounded with was The 
 Bonnie Blue Flag, a strong, vigorous lyric written 
 by Harry McCarthy, and sung first in a New Orleans 
 theatre. It does indeed possess that reckless swing 
 which is necessary to every popular ballad : 
 
 "We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil, 
 Fighting for the property gain'd by honest toil ; 
 And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and 
 
 far, 
 Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 "Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Southern rights, hurrah ! 
 Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star !" 
 
 But when all is said about these and such others 
 as were known in separate camps, there remains one 
 touching song that all sincerely loved, My Maryland. 
 Justly, indeed, has it been called "the Marseillaise of 
 the Confederate cause." 
 
290 Poetry 
 
 I 
 
 The story of its origin is interesting. It was 
 written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall of 
 Louisiana. Randall was a professor at Poydras 
 College, Pointe Coupee ; and it was while there that 
 he arose one night from a wild dream, and wrote the 
 words. Soon afterwards Mrs. Burton Harrison 
 set the poem to an old college melody, Lauriger 
 Horatius, known among German university students 
 as Tannenbaum. Never was a song taken up more 
 quickly. And with its mingling of sorrow, stern- 
 ness, pride, and hope, it is worthy of memory. 
 
 "The despot's heel is on thy shore, 
 
 Maryland ! 
 His torch is at thy temple door, 
 
 Maryland ! 
 Avenge the patriotic gore 
 That flecked the streets of Baltimore, 
 And be the battle-queen of yore, 
 
 Maryland, my Maryland !" 
 
 Some one has made an expression like this : "Let 
 me make a nation's songs, and I care not who makes 
 her laws." The influence of literature on a nation's 
 welfare is greater than most men judge it to be. In 
 warfare inspiring words are as necessary as arms. 
 The Southern cause was unfortunate in not possess- 
 ing more lyrics applicable to the special struggle 
 through which it was passing. We may well close 
 the list on the one hand with Father Ryan's mournful 
 words in The Conquered Banner: 
 
 "Fold that Banner, for 'tis weary ; 
 Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary. 
 Furl it, fold it,— it is best." 
 
 and on the other hand, with that pathetic, despairing 
 cry in Walt Whitman's Captain! My Captain! 
 
 "Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! 
 
 But I, with mournful tread. 
 Walk the deck my Captain lies. 
 Fallen cold and dead !" 
 
Alexander Beaufort Meek 291 
 
 II 
 
 When we come to study the individual poets of 
 this period, we find a fair general level of verse, with 
 several instances of really noble work. As in pre- 
 vious eras, the love of the lyric is in evidence, and 
 in this department there is no small amount of 
 sweetness, harmony, and technical skill. But the 
 deeper philosophies of life are handled perhaps a 
 little more often; greater sincerity seems present; 
 and, although the power of sustained effort belongs 
 to but few, there is in other ways a marked improve- 
 ment. 
 
 One of the early lyric writers was Alexander 
 Beaufort Meek (1814-1865). While a small boy 
 he removed from his birthplace, 
 Alexander Columbia, South Carolina, to Tusca- 
 Beaufort loosa, Alabama, and there in the 
 
 Meek University of Alabama and, later, in 
 
 — the University of Georgia, he received 
 
 (1814=1865) his general and law education. Of 
 course, as a Southern lawyer, he 
 entered politics, and held various important posi- 
 tions, among them being that of Assistant- Secretary 
 of Treasury (1845). He found time, however, like 
 many another Southern lawyer and politician, to 
 become an amateur in literature and to serve as edi- 
 tor of such important papers as The Tuscaloosa Flag 
 of the Union, The Southron, and The Mobile Regis- 
 ter. His verses appeared frequently in Southern 
 papers and magazines, and when they were collected 
 in Red Eagle (1855) and Songs and Poems of the 
 South (1857), they received enthusiastic notice. 
 
 Meek was a writer of some sweetness and no little 
 vigor. In all of his poems there is good lyric quality. 
 For instance, in this last stanza of The Mocking 
 
292 Alexander Beaufort Meek 
 
 Bird, there is some true harmony, and besides, there 
 is a certain Hghtness that is not without charm : 
 
 "Bird of music, wit, and gladness. 
 
 Troubadour of sunny climes, 
 Disenchanter of all sadness, — 
 
 Would thine art were in my rhymes. 
 O'er the heart that's beating by me, 
 
 I would weave a spell divine ; 
 Is there aught she could deny me. 
 
 Drinking in such strains as thine? 
 Listen ! dearest, listen to it ! 
 
 Sweeter sounds were never heard ! 
 'Tis the song of that wild poet — 
 
 Mime and minstrel — Mocking Bird." 
 
 Much of his work is of this character and quahty. 
 Take, again, A Song; here we have real lyric free- 
 dom — the spontaneity of expression, the happiness 
 of sentiment that make a true melody: 
 
 "The blue-bird is whistling in Hillibee grove, — 
 
 Terra-re I Terra-re ! 
 His mate is repeating the tale of his love, — 
 Terra-re! Terra-re! 
 But never that song, 
 As its notes float along. 
 So sweet and so soft in its raptures can be. 
 As thy low whispered words, young chieftain, to me." 
 
 But it has been mentioned that melody and pleas- 
 ing sentiment alone do not make a great poet. Liv- 
 ing thought, passionate questionings, dramatic force, 
 and deep emotional power have been and ever will 
 be requisites. These Meek did not possess. As 
 was the case of others to be discussed, he was an 
 amateur in poetry, a man who expressed a few senti- 
 ments in delicate, pleasing fabrics. 
 
Theodore O'Hara 293 
 
 III 
 
 Again we come to a man made famous by one 
 production — Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867)', 
 author of The Bivouac of the Dead. 
 Theodore He was born at Danville, Kentucky, 
 O'Hara and received his education, both aca- 
 
 — demic and law, in that town. In his 
 
 (1820-1867) twenty-fifth year he secured a clerk- 
 ship in the Treasury Department at 
 Washington ; but he gave this up to enter the Mexi- 
 can War. For a time he practised law at Washing- 
 ton, then began newspaper work, serving as editor 
 of The Mobile Register and The Frankfort Yeoman, 
 and at the opening of the Civil War, entered the 
 Confederate army and at its close came out ranking 
 as a colonel, but absolutely penniless. His remain- 
 ing years were spent as a cotton buyer in Georgia 
 and Alabama. He was buried first in Georgia, but 
 by a special act of the Kentucky legislature, his 
 body was taken to Frankfort and buried among the 
 heroes of Buena Vista. 
 
 Now, as both soldier and poet, he deserved this 
 honor. For, besides having served with these dead, 
 he wrote his one worthy poem on the occasion of 
 their burial at Frankfort. Some Hnes of The 
 Bivouac of the Dead are today more familiar to 
 many Americans than quotations from far greater 
 poets. The opening words of the verses have been 
 heard on many a public occasion: 
 
 "The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 
 The soldier's last tatoo ; 
 No more on Life's parade shall meet 
 That brave and fallen few." 
 
 And as one walks through some of the great national 
 cemeteries, where rows upon rows of graves stretch 
 before the eye, the appropriateness of some portions 
 is striking. 
 
294 Margaret Preston 
 
 "On Fame's eternal camping ground 
 
 Their silent tents are spread, 
 And glory guards, with solemn round. 
 
 The bivouac of the dead." 
 
 And again: 
 
 "Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal 
 
 Shall thrill with fierce delight 
 Those breasts that never more may feel 
 The rapture of the fight." 
 
 The poem has been most fortunate in its setting, 
 its environment, and the mood of its readers. Seen, 
 as it almost always is, amid the silence and gloom 
 of these vast burial grounds of heroes, it has a 
 strange effect on the already saddened hearts of its 
 readers. Certainly not in American Literature and 
 perhaps not in any other literature is there such 
 another poem, holding its own against time, 
 through the help of the dead. 
 
 IV 
 
 During the same years that Augusta Evans Wil- 
 son and other women of the South were gaining 
 much attention as novelists, a woman, 
 Margaret named Margaret Preston, the wife 
 Preston of a Virginia professor, was produc- 
 
 — ing a poetry which was in that time 
 
 (1820-1897) and is today considered of an exceed- 
 ingly high degree of excellence. Mar- 
 garet Preston (1820- 1897) was the daughter of 
 Dr. Junkin, founder of Lafayette College, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and was born at Philadelphia. During her 
 twenty-eighth year her father became president of 
 Washington and Lee College, and from that time 
 forth she resided in Virginia and her main interests 
 were centered in the South. She married Colonel 
 
Margaret Preston 295 
 
 J. T. L. Preston, a professor in the Virginia Military- 
 Institute, at Lexington, where most of her Hterary 
 work was done. 
 
 She was a rather quiet woman, but her intellectual 
 attainments were brilliant. One of her earliest 
 memories, she declared, was standing at her father's 
 knee, when only a little one three years old, learning 
 the Hebrew alphabet. At ten she was reading dif- 
 ficult Latin; at twelve she had made good progress 
 in Greek. Her range of reading in English was 
 exceedingly wide and careful, a fact that is evidenced 
 in the influence of English poets upon her work 
 and also in that polish of expression which only 
 association with the best in literature can give. 
 
 Her first volume was a novel, Silverwood — A 
 Book of Memories (1856). It was a quiet, simple 
 story, rather sad in its general tone, and distinctly 
 Southern in its scenes and trend of thought. 
 Although good, it was not excellent; and its popu- 
 larity was rather limited. In her second volume 
 Mrs. Preston found that the sphere of her work 
 was poetry. Beechenbrook; A Rhyme of the War, 
 written in the midst of the strife, and published in 
 1866, was undoubtedly the most popular poem in 
 the South during the entire war decade. In those 
 days it received a welcome rarely accorded to Ameri- 
 can verse. It is a long poem, covering sixty or 
 seventy closely printed pages, and, as the title indi- 
 cates, is a narrative of the great struggle. Here 
 we have a description of that life of agonizing 
 suspense led by many a soldier's wife. There is in it, 
 to quote from the volume itself, 
 
 "The clangour of muskets, the flashing of steel, 
 The clatter of spurs on the stout-booted heel, 
 The waving of banners, the resonant tramp 
 Of marching battalions." 
 
 But ever present amidst this show and flourish of 
 
296 ^ Margaret Preston 
 
 war is that sadder feature — ^the torturing anxiety 
 of those who wait by the fireside. And along this 
 line the poet shows no small power in her vividness 
 and emotional effect. Naturally the volume is not 
 a restful one; the theme would hardly permit of 
 such a characteristic; but its trueness to the stern, 
 bitter life that millions of men and women had 
 experienced in those troubled days gained for the 
 work most hearty approval. Technically the verse 
 is for the most part good, and some of the lyrics 
 scattered throughout the volume are melodious. 
 One especially was often repeated in that day — ^the 
 one beginning : 
 
 "Break, my heart, and ease this pain ; 
 Cease to throb, thou tortured brain ; 
 Let me die, since he is slain — 
 Slain in battle !" 
 
 After the publication of this volume, her books 
 appeared at rather wide intervals. Old Songs and 
 New was published in 1870, Cartoons in 1875, For 
 Love's Sake in 1887, and Colonial Ballads in the 
 same year. There may be perceived in these works 
 a gradual growth in precision and dramatic force. 
 Fortunately, in the case of this Southern poet there is 
 little or none of the affectation so often seen in verse- 
 writers of the period. Far more serious thought is 
 found here. The "humanness" of the woman, the 
 soul of her shines out. There is no cant, no pedantry 
 in her effort, but simply the spirit of a thinking, feel- 
 ing being. In her descriptive ability she was not 
 far behind some of her much better known contem- 
 poraries. She sometimes places a scene before us 
 with remarkably few strokes; as, for instance, in 
 A Grave in Hollywood Cemetery: 
 
 "Dim 
 The city's hum drifts o'er his grave, 
 And green above the hollies wave 
 Their jagged leaves, as when a boy, 
 
Margaret Preston 297 
 
 On blissful summer afternoons, 
 He came to sing the birds his runes, 
 And tell the river of his joy." 
 
 This ability to put the right word in the right place 
 is one of the charms of Margaret Preston. Every- 
 where there is a simplicity of diction, but melody 
 is just as prevalent. When she chooses, said one 
 criticism of the day, "her rhymes run off with an 
 airy tinkle and twinkle that show her work to be 
 no labored manufacture, but the true effluence of a 
 soul to whom the poem form is innate and essential." 
 But, on the other hand, there are times when "tinkle" 
 and "twinkle" are absent, and in their place is the 
 rapid, simple movement of the true balladist. 
 
 Perhaps it is in this last named quality that she 
 is at her best. Oftentimes her work is imbued with 
 suggestions of great restraint. She shows this in 
 her earliest work, in Beechenhrook, Regulus, and 
 her translation of Dies Irae, and in her later work 
 the curbed intensity, which is ever an essential of art, 
 is even more evident. Read, for instance, her version 
 of the strangest of all events in American history, 
 in The Mystery of Cro-A-Tan. As she tells this 
 familiar story of the lost colony of Roanoke, she 
 catches something of the spirit of folk-lore and fills 
 the whole narrative with a tone of absolute mystery. 
 
 "How could a hundred souls be caught 
 
 Straight out of life, nor find 
 Device through which to mark their fate, 
 Or leave some hint behind?" 
 
 Again, in The Hero of the Commune, we have 
 something out of the ordinary in exciting portrayal 
 and in the power to enlist sympathy. By its abrupt- 
 ness, its strong expressions, its suppressed feeling, 
 and its faculty of making one word do duty for a 
 whole sentence, these few lines, describing a mere 
 
298 Margaret Preston 
 
 boy and his willingness to die for a cause, are indeed 
 effective. 
 
 " 'Garcon ! You— ^om 
 Snared along with this cursed crew? 
 (Only a child, and yet so bold, 
 Scarcely as much as ten years old!) 
 
 Do you hear? do you know- 
 Why the gendarmes put you there, in the row, 
 You, with those Commune wretches tall. 
 With your face to the wall ?' 
 
 " 'Know? To be sure, I know !' why not? 
 
 We're here to be shot ; 
 And there, by the pillar's the very spot. 
 Fighting for France, my father fell; 
 
 Ah, well ! 
 That's just the way / would choose to fall, 
 
 With my back to the wall.' 
 
 " 'Parbleu ! Come out of the line, I say, 
 Come out! (who said that his name was Ney?) 
 Ha ! France will hear of him yet one day !' " 
 
 And, if still further proof of this intensity of dra- 
 matic portrayal be desired, a more quiet instance 
 may be found in Lady Yeardley's Guest, describing 
 the coming, on Christmas eve, of an Indian warrior, 
 "chief of the Roanokes," with his little boy whom 
 he wished to have reared in civilization, 
 
 " 'To learn of the speaking paper ; 
 
 To hear of the wiser ways 
 Of the, people beyond the water; 
 
 To break with the plough the sod ; 
 To be kind to papoose and woman ; 
 
 To pray to the white man's God.' " 
 
 It has been mentioned that there is no affectation 
 in Mrs. Preston. Her sentiment is wholesome — it 
 is more; it is lofty, idealistic. Its purity has often 
 caused her to be compared to Mrs. Browning, and 
 the comparison is not unjustified. Note the senti- 
 ment of resignation in such lines as these: 
 
 "What will it matter by and by 
 
 Whether, unhelped, I toiled alone, 
 
Margaret Preston 299 
 
 Dashing my foot against a stone, 
 Missing the charge of the angel nigh 
 Bidding me think of the by and by ? 
 
 "What wilUt matter? Naught, if I 
 Only am sure the way I've trod, 
 Gloomy or gladdened, leads to God, 
 
 Questioning not of the how, the why, 
 
 If I but reach Him by and by." 
 
 Again this purity and loftiness of thought and 
 emotion may be felt in one of her most widely read 
 poems, Calling the Angels In: 
 
 "We mean to do it. Some day, some day. 
 We mean to slacken this feverish rush 
 
 That is wearing our very souls away, 
 And grant to our hearts a hush 
 
 That is only enough to let them hear 
 
 The footsteps of angels drawing near. 
 
 "The day that we dreamed of comes at length, 
 
 When tired of every mocking quest, 
 And broken in spirit and shorn of strength. 
 
 We drop at the door of rest. 
 And wait and watch as the day wanes on — 
 But the angels we meant to call are gone !" 
 
 Of all her poems doubtless the most popular in 
 the South was The Shade of the Trees, which 
 appeared in Cartoons. The verses commemorate 
 the death of Stonewall Jackson (1863), whose last 
 words were so significant: "Let us pass over the 
 river and rest under the shade of the trees." Here, 
 in this poem, is a most artistic use of the expres- 
 sion. How deep the emotion must have been with 
 which those who had known the leader read these 
 words, we of a later generation, both North and 
 South, may well imagine. 
 
 "Yes, it was noblest for him — it was best, 
 
 (Questioning naught of our Father's decrees) 
 There to pass over the river and rest 
 Under the shade of the trees !" 
 
300 Francis Orrery Ticknor 
 
 Nothing has been said of Margaret Preston's 
 faults. They were not positive. She did indeed 
 lack somewhat in originaHty. Her sentiments, 
 though lofty, are not startlingly novel. She did not 
 endeavor to present new forms of verse ; she but used 
 the old forms skilfully. She had no great philoso- 
 phy, unless it was Resignation. But, after all, the 
 beauty of her thought and of its expression, the 
 purity of her sentiment, the freedom from affectation 
 and pedantry, and her ability to tell dramatically a 
 simple story lend to her verse a quality equal if not 
 superior to that of the poetry of any other American 
 woman. 
 
 V 
 
 From time to time during the war decade there 
 appeared in Southern magazines and newspapers 
 
 many short lyrical poems by Francis 
 Francis Orrery Ticknor (1822-1874). Lit- 
 
 Orrery tie was known of the man who wrote 
 
 Ticknor these pleasing stanzas, and when he 
 
 — passed away the reading public either 
 
 (1822-1874) heard nothing of the event, or at most 
 
 gave it but a passing notice. But 
 when, in 1879, Kate Mason Rowland collected these 
 fugitive poems in a well edited volume, the South 
 suddenly awoke to the fact that in a quiet, unambi- 
 tious sort of way a poet of no mean merit had lived 
 and sung in its midst. 
 
 Dr. Ticknor was a native of Georgia. After hav- 
 ing studied medicine in New York and Philadelphia, 
 he began the practise of his profession near Colum- 
 bus, Georgia, and there passed a busy and useful 
 life as a country physician. This is the simple story 
 of his existence. But it so happened that he was 
 accustomed to write in verse the thoughts and 
 
Francis Orrery Ticknor 301 
 
 emotions which came to him in his daily rounds of 
 duty, and it is these melodies that rescue his name 
 from oblivion. 
 
 Some of his poems, especially those concerning 
 the war, became favorites in the South, and were 
 quoted throughout the entire section. Such a one 
 was Virginians of the Valley^ written after the 
 Virginia soldiers had gained some ground against 
 the Union forces. It weaves into its stanzas hints 
 of the tradition that an order with a golden horse- 
 shoe as an emblem, had once existed in Virginia. 
 How often indeed were the last words repeated 
 during the dark days : 
 
 "We thought they slept ! the men who kept 
 
 The names of noble sires, 
 And slumbered while the darkness crept 
 
 Around their vigil fires ! 
 But aye ! the golden horseshoe knights 
 
 Their Old Dominion keep, 
 Where foes have found enchanted ground 
 
 But not a knight asleep." 
 
 In combinations of melodious sounds he possessed 
 that same ability noticed in so many other Southern 
 poets; and on this score, perhaps, we can excuse 
 Hayne's enthusiastic statement that Ticknor was 
 "one of the truest and sweetest lyric poets this 
 country has yet produced." But there is more than 
 music in his verse. Oftentimes there is a deal of 
 fire and vim in these lyrics. Notice in Little Giffen 
 the dramatic abruptness with which this story of 
 a wounded boy is told, how in reading one almost 
 forgets the rhyme and rhythm in the eagerness to 
 hear the story. True art does not display its art. 
 
 "Out of the focal and foremost fire. 
 Out of the hospital walls as dire ; 
 Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene, 
 (Eighteenth battle and he sixteen:) 
 Specter: such as you seldom see. 
 Little Giffen of Tennessee ! 
 
302 John Randolph Thompson 
 
 "Word of gloom from the war, one day; 
 Johnson pressed at the front, they say. 
 Little Giffen was up and away; 
 A tear — his first — as he bade good-by, 
 Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye. 
 'I'll write if spared !' There was news of the fight ; 
 But none of Giffen ! — He did not write." 
 
 The same intensity might be illustrated by others 
 of his simple, ballad-like poems — Loyal, for instance : 
 
 "Where leads my Lord of Bruce, the Sword 
 
 Of Douglas shall not stay! 
 Forward ! and to the feet of Christ 
 I follow thee today. 
 
 "The casket flashed ! The Battle clashed, 
 
 Thundered and rolled away. 
 And dead above the Heart of Bruce 
 The heart of Douglas lay." 
 
 Ticknor is known best by his war-poems; but 
 some of his Nature-poems are of superior merit. 
 The Hills, Among the Birds, April Morning, and 
 others whose titles are significant show the man's 
 love for those things "whose Maker and Builder 
 is God." Here, then, we have one who wrote, and 
 wrote well, with no hope of reward from the out- 
 side world. Many of his poems never appeared in 
 periodicals. He sang simply because he loved to 
 sing. Therefore, in these unaffected lines we find 
 each thought and each emotion singularly imbued 
 with sincerity and sweetness. 
 
 VI 
 
 An occasional poet, it would seem, writes with a 
 
 prospect the very opposite of that of Ticknor's ; for 
 
 he composes for the public and knows 
 
 John that, if his poem be worthy, his 
 
 Randolph reward will be immediate. Perhaps 
 
 Thompson the best known occasional poet in 
 
 — Southern Literature of the war period 
 
 (1823=1873) was John Randolph Thompson 
 
 (1823- 1 873). We hear little of this 
 
 man today. His poems have not been collected, 
 
John Randolph Thompson 303 
 
 and to many people he is but a name. Perhaps the 
 very timeliness of his verse, a necessary quality in 
 poetry for occasions, has brought about this condi- 
 tion ; for sentiments of one generation may be almost 
 incomprehensible to another generation. 
 
 Thompson was born at Richmond, Virginia, and 
 received his collegiate education at the State Univer- 
 sity, where he also studied law. He took the usual 
 "author's" course in opening an office and waiting 
 for clients, and at length came to the usual wise 
 conclusion that he was not "cut out" for a lawyer. 
 In 1847 he became editor of The Southern Literary 
 Messenger, and during the next twelve years, by 
 means of his critical insight and wide acquaintance 
 with literary workers, he made it one of the leading 
 American periodicals. Among the authors whose 
 early work found a place in its columns were Donald 
 Mitchell, author of Reveries of A Bachelor; John 
 Esten Cooke, the novelist, and the poets Cooke, 
 Hayne, and Timrod. 
 
 Magazine-editing was indeed the very field for 
 him. But, as fate would have it, his health became 
 so impaired that he had to go farther south, and 
 for a time we find him editing The Southern Field 
 and Fireside at Augusta, Georgia. In 1863 he went 
 to England, and during the several years spent 
 abroad he frequently contributed to such magazines 
 as Cornhill and Blackwood's. His health improved ; 
 he returned to New York ; he became literary editor 
 of the New York Evening Post; his ability as a 
 writer was winning recognition, and then in 1872 
 came another physical collapse. A trip to Colorado 
 did but little good, and, having returned to New 
 York, he died there in 1873. 
 
 He was in many ways a most brilliant man. As 
 a lecturer he had a great fund of information which 
 
304 John Randolph Thompson 
 
 made him a remarkably instructive talker, while his 
 gentle, genial manner made him at all times exceed- 
 ingly attractive and entertaining. Doubtless the best 
 summary ever given of the personal characteristics 
 of Poe is to be found in Thompson's often repeated 
 address. The Life and Character of Edgar A. Poe. 
 His opinions as a critic were of value. The acute- 
 ness of his work along this line was often remarked 
 upon, while the editors of the Evening Post declared 
 that no man had ever filled the position of literary 
 editor more acceptably. But his work as a poet was 
 more admired. Today we may find his poems only 
 after search in old files of newspapers and magazines, 
 especially The Southern Literary Messenger and 
 The Land We Love; but in his time, after he had 
 recited them before various public assemblies, they 
 were known throughout the entire South. Two 
 notable ones were Virginia (1856), a tribute to the 
 Old Dominion, and The Greek Slave (1858), 
 delivered at the unveiling of the statue of Washing- 
 ton at Richmond. 
 
 But today we remember him for three or four 
 efforts of a different type: The Battle Rainbow, 
 Stuart, Ashhy, and that still widely read poem. 
 Music in Camp. The Battle Rainbow is based on 
 the fact that just before the Seven Days' Battle near 
 Richmond (1862) a huge rainbow spanned the line 
 of the Confederate camp. 
 
 "Not yet, oh not yet, as a sign of release, 
 
 Had the Lord set in mercy his bow in the cloud ; 
 Nor yet had the Comforter whispered of peace 
 To the hearts that around us lay bleeding and bowed. 
 
 "But the promise was given — the beautiful arc, 
 
 With its brilliant confusion of colours that spanned 
 The sky on that exquisite eve, was the mark 
 Of the Infinite Love over-arching the land." 
 
John Randolph Thompson 305 
 
 Who has not read Music in Camp? — how the two 
 armies lay on opposite sides of the stream ; a band 
 began to play ; and 
 
 "Down flocked the soldiers to the banks 
 
 Till, margined by its pebbles, 
 One wooded shore was blue with 'Yanks,' 
 And one was gray with 'Rebels.' 
 
 "Then all was still and then the band. 
 With movement light and tricksy, 
 Made stream and forest, hill and strand 
 Reverberate with 'Dixie.' 
 
 "Again a pause, and then again 
 
 The trumpets pealed sonorous. 
 And 'Yankee Doodle' was the strain 
 To which the shore gave chorus. 
 
 "And yet once more the bugle sang 
 Above the stormy riot ; 
 No shout upon the evening rang — 
 There reigned a holy quiet." 
 
 For Home, Sweet Home was now the melody, and, 
 as though by magic, each soldier saw 
 
 "The cottage neath the live-oak trees, 
 The cabin by the prairie." 
 
 There is always a careful finish in Thompson's 
 verse, and he frequently makes melodious and telling ■ 
 expressions. Note these lines from Ashby: 
 
 "Never more, alas ! shall sabre 
 
 Gleam around his crest; 
 Fought his fight ; fulfilled his labour ; 
 
 Stilled his manly breast. 
 All unheard sweet Nature cadence 
 Trump of fame and voice of maidens, 
 
 Now he takes his rest." 
 
 Notice, also, these words from The Battle Rainbow: 
 
 "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." 
 
306 James Barron Hope 
 
 Depth of thought was not Thompson's. Instead, like 
 most poets of occasion, he sought grace, agility, 
 timeliness. These qualities he did indeed possess; 
 and they charmed his many hearers. But his fame 
 largely passed away with his audience. 
 
 VII 
 
 A name often seen in The Southern Literary 
 Messenger during Thompson's editorship was 
 "Henry Ellen." It was under this 
 James pen-name that James Barron Hope 
 
 Barron (1827- 1 887) did his earliest work, 
 
 Hope and it was The Southern Literary 
 
 — Messenger and some Baltimore news- 
 
 (1827=1887) papers that gave him the first oppor- 
 tunity to contribute his verses to 
 American Literature. He was born at Norfolk, 
 Virginia. After graduating at William and Mary 
 College (1847), he practised law; but perhaps he 
 gave more genuine zeal to his literary efforts than 
 to his legal ones. He was well known under the 
 name of Henry Ellen several years before the Civil 
 War. With the outbreak of this national slaughter, 
 he entered the Confederate army and served until the 
 surrender. Like Lee, he turned from war to become 
 an educator, and, having been appointed superin- 
 tendent of schools at Norfolk, he soon became one 
 of the leaders in his work. While yet a teacher he 
 established The Landmark at Norfolk, and was its 
 editor throughout the remainder of his life. 
 
 During all these busy years he had found time to 
 contribute frequently to magazines, while his ability 
 as a poet for occasions caused many demands for 
 such verse. He was invited by Congress to deliver 
 an address on the hundredth anniversary of the 
 surrender of Cornwallis, and the result was his Arms 
 and the Man, a poem of such breadth of vision and 
 
James Barron Hope 307 
 
 beauty of thought that thousands who had considered 
 him only an elegant poetizer were compelled to see 
 in him a poet of genuine power. In 1857 he recited 
 a poem in commemoration of the two hundred and 
 fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown ; 
 in 1858 he recited his Ode at the dedication of the 
 Washington monument at Richmond; and in 1887, 
 not long before he died, he wrote his Memorial Ode 
 for the laying of the comer-stone of the Lee monu- 
 ment, Richmond. The very first of such poems 
 written by him was good, but each effort showed 
 added power, and the last one, Memorial Ode, is 
 considered by many critics as one of the very best of 
 its kind ever composed by an American. It ■vyas in 
 1857 that his first collection of verse appeared, under 
 the title Leoni di Monota. This was followed by ^ 
 Elegiac Ode and Other Poems and a novel. Under 
 the Empire. These volumes, with several uncollected 
 poems, constitute a work that is notable rather for 
 quality than for quantity. 
 
 Of all of Hope's poems the one most famous in 
 his day was The Charge at Balaklava. Taking the 
 same subject as Tennyson did in The Charge of the 
 Light Brigade, he wrought a narrative not so terse 
 as that of the great Poet-Laureate, but yet very little 
 inferior in spirit, and with much more portrayal of 
 the battle-scene. Here, in this effort, is a strange 
 mingling of many passions. To see the force of the 
 story, the entire poem should be read; for Hope's 
 poetry does not lend itself well to minute extracts. 
 His thoughts are always closely woven, depending 
 upon one another. But note one or two sentiments 
 from The Charge at Balaklava. Here is the 
 impatience for battle : 
 
 "All that morning they had waited,. 
 As their frowning faces showed : 
 
 Horses stamping, riders fretting, 
 
 And their teeth together setting, 
 
 Not a single sword-blade wetting, 
 As the battle ebbed and flowed." 
 
308 James Barron Hope 
 
 Then comes the charge : 
 
 "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 wing." 
 
 Then comes the horror of battle : 
 
 "And tonight the moon shall shudder 
 
 As she looks down on the moor 
 Where the dead of hostile races 
 Slumber, slaughtered in their places ; 
 All their rigid, ghastly faces 
 
 Spattered hideously with gore." 
 
 It was this strong description of human bravery 
 that made Hope's name known abroad. For Queen 
 Victoria greatly admired the poem, and made 
 personal efforts to see that it was copied widely 
 throughout Great Britain. 
 
 But the passion displayed in this piece is not 
 exceptional in his work. The same fervor is found 
 in many of his stanzas, especially in those delivered 
 on public occasions. This emotionalism makes him 
 at times a little too declamatory; but when we 
 remember the themes and the occasions, we may look 
 upon this defect as slight. In the main, he possesses 
 an effective simplicity and dignity, and an ever 
 present forcefulness cannot be denied him. For an 
 instance of this dignity and simplicity, take but a 
 stanza from his poem delivered before the Memorial 
 Shaft to the Confederate Dead, at Warrenton, 
 Virginia : 
 
 "We come to raise this mournful shaft 
 Above the consecrated dust 
 Of heroes who laid down their lives 
 ■ For what they deemed most just." 
 
 Suggestiveness, or significance, of thought is 
 essential in every really great poem. Hope was 
 
James Barron Hope 309 
 
 indeed strikingly original in this trait. As, in Arms 
 and the Man, he sweeps broadly over the history of 
 America, he exclaims : 
 
 "I see great Shapes in vague confusion march 
 Like giant shadows, moving vast and slow, 
 Beneath some torch-lit temple's mighty arch 
 Where long processions go. 
 
 "I see these Shapes before me all unfold, 
 But ne'er can fix them on the lofty wall, 
 Nor tell them, save as she of Endor told 
 What she beheld to Saul." 
 
 Again, in the Memorial Ode there are the germs 
 of many thoughts in such lines as these : 
 
 "Our history is a shining sea 
 
 Locked in by lofty land, 
 And its great Pillars of Hercules 
 
 Above the shifting sand 
 I here behold in majesty 
 
 Uprising on each hand. 
 
 "The Father of his Country 
 
 Stands above that shut-in ■sea. 
 A glorious symbol to the world 
 
 Of all that's great and free; 
 And today Virginia matches him — 
 
 And matches him with Lee." 
 
 Turning once more to Arms and the Man, we find 
 in Hope's comparison of the origins of the North and 
 South, a most significant fact — one, indeed, that 
 caused a lack of mutual understanding, a bitterness, 
 and a warfare that shook the very foundations of 
 the American commonwealth. 
 
 "At Plymouth Rock a handful of brave souls. 
 
 Full-armed in faith, erected home and shrine, 
 And flourished where the wild Atlantic rolls 
 Its pyramids of brine. 
 
 "Soft ease and silken opulence they spumed ; 
 
 From sands of silver, and from emerald boughs 
 With golden ingots laden full, they turned 
 Like Pilgrims under vows. 
 
310 James Barron Hope 
 
 "Then sweeping down below Virginia's capes, 
 From Chesapeake to where Savannah flows, 
 We find the settlers laughing 'raid their grapes 
 And ignorant of snows. 
 
 "Kind skies above them, under foot rich soils ; 
 Silence and Savage at their presence fled; 
 This Giant's Causeway, sacred through their toils, 
 Resounded at their tread." 
 
 Here, then, we have broadness and some depth of 
 thought — a type of poet found in only the greater 
 few. It may have been observed, also, in the speci- 
 mens given above, that Hope had no mean talent in 
 description. In this, as our study has shown, he but 
 exemplifies a common trait of Southern Literature; 
 for not only in the poetry, but in the fiction and 
 oratory as well, the effect of the luxuriant environ- 
 ment bestowed by Nature is very noticeable. The 
 exceptional scenes of life are touched upon in The 
 Charge at Balaklava; but for the enthusiasm of a 
 lover of every-day life, the beauties that we mortals 
 pass so blindly, we should read Three Summer 
 Studies. Just a stanza from each should convince 
 one that Hope had genius in this particular line. 
 From Morning take these words : 
 
 "The dew is thick upon the velvet grass — 
 
 The porch-rails hold it in translucent drops, 
 And as the cattle from th' enclosure pass. 
 
 Each one, alternate, slowly halts and crops 
 The tall, green spears, with all their dewy load. 
 Which grow beside the well-known pasture-road." 
 
 And here is a picture of noon : 
 
 "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 bragging cock from litter'd farm-yard crows. 
 The scene is steep'd in silence and repose." 
 
James Barron Hope 311 
 
 Who has not seen the summer evening storm ? 
 
 "The air of evening is intensely hot, 
 
 The breeze feels heated as it fans my brows, 
 Now sullen rain-drops patter down like shot. 
 
 Strike in the grass, or rattle 'mid the boughs, 
 A sultry lull, and then a gust again. 
 And now I see the thick-advancing rain." 
 
 Hope was a poet who might have accomplished 
 great works, if his whole energy had been given to 
 the production of poetry. For, after all, a genius is 
 a man who gives his entire strength to that task for 
 which he is best suited. In other words, he is a 
 believer and follower of the doctrine of concentrated 
 energy. But the war came on when Hope was 
 advancing to his own, and for five years the develop- 
 ment of the poetic faculty was suspended. Then 
 came the call to work in many capacities for the 
 prostrated South — too many, in fact. Perhaps the 
 words on his tomb have, in the very number of them, 
 a certain sad significance : "Poet, Patriot, Scholar, 
 and Journalist, and Knightly Virginia Gentleman." 
 
 vni 
 
 Let us remember in all this study that the poetry 
 of the South, and the greater part of American 
 poetry, for that matter, has ever been effort rather 
 than accomplishment. Judged from the standpoint 
 of absolute literary value, that is, the standard set by 
 the world's classical writers from Homer to Brown- 
 ing, few American writers and fewer Southern 
 writers can be called masters. But we are studying 
 Southern Literature from a more sympathetic 
 position ; we are studying the efforts made by these 
 writers to express what they saw in life, and what 
 their hopes and griefs and joys and sorrows were. 
 
 We have seen that no one great thought or passion 
 moved them all. In the two decades immediately 
 
312 John Williamson Palmer 
 
 preceding the Civil War, the North was in the midst 
 of a great creative impulse, a very ferment of ideas, 
 ideals, emotions, and movements. But in the South 
 the conditions were somewhat different. The 
 strange philosophy of a Browning and the sledge- 
 hammer prose of a Carlyle were not favorites with 
 the easy-going planter. "The world went very well 
 then" and was not at all out of joint. We find, 
 therefore, many writers composing slight and delicate 
 lyrics — songs not without charm and never without 
 melody, but not compelled to utterance by over- 
 whelming conviction. But suddenly came the rude 
 shock of war, and when the last drop of blood had 
 been shed, the South came forth, dazed and bewil- 
 dered, to find that the former things had passed 
 away. And with the very beginning of those 
 darkest days came sincerity of sentiment, and the 
 sincerest poets the South has ever produced: 
 Timrod, Hayne, and Lanier. In these the poetry 
 of the period finds a fitting climax. 
 
 But, before beginning the study of these men, let 
 us take at least a glance at a few others whose work 
 
 was good but not lofty, to some extent 
 John sincere, but not throbbing with 
 
 Williamson thought and passion. Of these the 
 Palmer first in order of time is John 
 
 — Williamson Palmer (1825- ), 
 
 (1825- ) the poet, novelist, and journalist. He 
 
 was born at Baltimore and spent much 
 of his early life in Maryland; but his later years were 
 passed at New York City. Among his works may 
 be mentioned The Golden Dragon^iSe,^), California 
 and India in Romantic Aspects (18^9), and the novel. 
 After His Kind ( 1 886 ) . But, above all, he is known 
 for those vivid lines entitled Stonewall Jackson's 
 Way (1862), a poem recited time and time again 
 in every Confederate camp : 
 
Henry Lynden Flash 313 
 
 "Silence! Ground arms! Kneel all! Caps off! 
 
 Old Massa's going to pray. 
 Strangle the fool that dares to scoff ; 
 
 Attention! — it's his way. 
 Appealing from his native sod, 
 In forma pauperis to God, 
 'Lay bare Thine arm ! Stretch forth thy rod ! 
 
 Amen !'— That's Stonewall's Way. 
 
 "He's in the saddle now, Fall in ! 
 
 Steady! the whole brigade. 
 Hill's at the ford, cut off; we'll win 
 
 His way out, ball and blade. 
 What matter if our shoes are worn? 
 What matter if our feet are torn? 
 Quick step ! we're with him before morn ! 
 
 That's Stonewall Jackson's way." 
 
 IX 
 
 Another poet deserving some notice is Henry 
 Lynden Flash (1835- ), a native of Ohio, but 
 
 a citizen of various Southern States, 
 Henry especially Alabama and Texas. He 
 
 Lynden was often spoken of during the war 
 
 Flash decade as a verse-writer who might 
 
 — some day do great things; but other 
 
 (1835= ) pursuits engaged his attention. In 
 
 spite of too much love for the melo- 
 dramatic, he has written some effective lines. One 
 of his earliest efforts to attract attention was Love 
 and Wrong: 
 
 "A scoffed-at prayer, the flit of a dress. 
 
 The glance of a frenzied eye, 
 A sudden splash, and the moon shone out, 
 And the stream went murmuring by. 
 
 "And never again will I walk by the moon, 
 Through the oaks and chestnuts high ; 
 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 ; 
 For I know that a tale of love and wrong 
 Will be told on the Judgment Day." 
 
314 Abram Ryan 
 
 Another poem well known in former days was 
 What She Brought Me, beginning with the words : 
 
 "This faded flower that you see 
 
 Was given me a year ago 
 By one whose little dainty hand 
 Is whiter than the snow." 
 
 Shadows in the Valley was another favorite : 
 
 "There's a mossy, shady valley, 
 
 Where the waters wind and flow, 
 And the daisies sleep in winter 
 
 'Neath a coverlid of snow ; 
 And violets, blue-eyed violets, 
 
 Bloom in beauty in the spring. 
 And the sunbeams kiss the wavelets 
 
 Till they seem to laugh and sing." 
 
 Time will not permit a criticism of Flash. Let us 
 close with a quotation from his Stonewall Jackson: 
 
 "O gracious God ! not gainless is the loss ! 
 
 A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown; 
 And while his country staggers 'neath the Cross, 
 He rises with the Crown !" 
 
 X 
 
 To mention the name of Father Abram Ryan 
 ( 1839-1886) is to enlist immediately the sympathetic 
 
 attention of many thousands of Amer- 
 
 Abram icans. For his was the same power 
 
 Ryan as that so often ascribed to Long- 
 
 — fellow — the power of making people 
 
 (1839=1886) love poetry. Abram Ryan was born 
 
 at Norfolk, Virginia, where, just a 
 few weeks before, his parents had arrived from 
 Ireland. While yet a boy he was taken to St. Louis, 
 and there in the Catholic schools he received his 
 education. He studied for the priesthood, and had 
 scarcely left the institution at Niagara, New York, 
 when he entered the Confederate army as a chaplain 
 and served through the long campaign. 
 
Abram Ryan 315 
 
 Stem in his adherence to principle, he may hardly 
 be said to have accepted the outcome of the war. 
 In his bitterness he said of the Union forces : "Their 
 chariot wheels have laid waste and desolate the land, 
 and I, for one, cannot bow and kiss the hands that 
 have caused all this woe." Nor was his animosity 
 diminished by the violences of the Reconstruction. 
 With such scenes in mind, he wrote these words : 
 
 "Land where the victor's flag waves, 
 Where only the dead are the free ! 
 Each link of the chain that enslaves, 
 But binds us to them and to thee." 
 
 It was not until years later, when the great wave 
 of yellow fever swept over the South, and the North 
 stretched out a helping hand, that he relented and 
 could write with sincerity such words as his 
 Reunited: 
 
 "Purer than thy own white snow, 
 
 Nobler than thy mountains' height ; 
 Deeper than the ocean's flow, 
 
 Stronger than thy own proud might; 
 O Northland ! to thy sisterland, 
 Was late thy mercy's generous deed and grand." 
 
 After the surrender he served as priest in various 
 Southern cities, among them being Nashville, 
 Tennessee; Knoxville, Tennessee; Augusta, Georgia; 
 and Mobile, Alabama; and everywhere that he 
 worked, he became known as a man of unusual 
 brightness of mind and amazing energy. At 
 Augusta he edited The Banner of the South, and thus 
 for three years he wielded great influence over the 
 younger generation of the New South. At length 
 his health declined ; he went for rest to the monastery 
 near Louisville, Kentucky; and there, in 1886, he 
 found that eternal rest for which he had so often 
 longed. 
 
 "For which he longed?" you ask. Yes, persist- 
 ently, most earnestly, he wished for the grave. For 
 
316 Abram Ryan 
 
 he was, above all else, a man of sadness. What 
 made him such has never been discovered, but the 
 fact remains that amidst all his gentleness and 
 encouragement to others, he wished to die. There 
 seems to have been a romance in his earlier years. 
 It is said that he and the one whom he loved, con- 
 sciously, purposely gave up each other for the service 
 of God, the one becoming a priest and the other a 
 nun ; and, without doubt, this sacrifice left permanent 
 effects upon his soul. He speaks thus of that last 
 meeting : 
 
 "One night in mid of May their faces met 
 As pure as all the stars that gazed on them. 
 They met to part from themselves and the world. 
 Their hearts just touched to separate and bleed; 
 Their eyes were linked in look, while saddest tears 
 Fell down, like rain, upon the cheeks of each: 
 They were to meet no more. Their hands were clasped 
 To tear the clasp in twain ; and all the stars 
 Looked proudly down on them, while shadows knelt, 
 Or seemed to kneel around them with the awe 
 Evoked from any heart by sacrifice. 
 And in the heart of that last parting hour 
 Eternity was beating." 
 
 Again, in Presentment, he speaks of her : 
 
 "And I saw the hand with the garland. 
 
 Ethel's hand — ^holy and fair; 
 Who went long ago to the far-land 
 
 To weave me the wreath I shall wear ; 
 And tonight I look up to the star-land 
 
 And pray that I soon may be there." 
 
 Whatever the cause, he possessed little love for 
 life. While on a visit to Europe in 1872, he was 
 seriously ill at Milan, and of this event he wrote : 
 
 "I nearly died, I almost touched the door 
 That swings between forever and no more; 
 I think I heard the awful hinges grate. 
 Hour after hour while I did weary wait 
 Death's coming; but alas! 'twas all in vain! 
 The door half opened and then closed again." 
 
Abram Ryan 3i7 
 
 In Death he uses this joyful expression : 
 
 "Out of the shadows of sadness, 
 Into the sunshine of gladness, 
 
 Into the light of the blest; 
 Out of a land very dreary, 
 Out of the world very weary. 
 
 Into the rapture of rest." 
 
 The reason for such a persistent desire in a man 
 of sunshiny nature is inexplicable. Perhaps it was 
 a trait in the very framing of the man ; for he declares 
 in Rest: 
 
 "'Twas always so; when but a child I laid 
 On mother's breast 
 My wearied little head — e'en then I prayed — 
 As now — for rest." 
 
 Perhaps, then, the prevailing characteristic of 
 Ryan's poetry is its peculiar, unaffected sadness. 
 And yet we must not believe him a pessimist. On 
 the contrary he was a genuine believer in the final 
 victory of the just and righteous order of things, and 
 he was an incessant worker toward that end. This 
 is the truest of the true, he affirmed, 
 
 "That joy is stronger here than grief, 
 Fills more of life, far more of years. 
 
 And makes the reign of sorrow brief; 
 Gives more of smiles for less of tears. 
 
 Joy is life's tree — grief but its leaves." 
 
 Bravely he accepted grief as a fact, an element not 
 to be ignored, and he saw in it this solace : it gives 
 to the sufferer a noble strength. In A Thought he 
 expressed the idea : 
 
 "It is a truth beyond our ken — 
 
 And yet a truth that all may read — 
 It is with roses as with men. 
 The sweetest hearts are those that bleed." 
 
318 Abram Ryan 
 
 And here, too, in Night Thoughts, such words as 
 the following are in no wise the weak cry of a 
 pessimist : 
 
 "Better a day of strife 
 
 Than a century of sleep ; 
 Give me instead of a long stream of life 
 The tempests and tears of the deep." 
 
 The deeds of his life were in accordance with such 
 a philosophy. Fully awake to the interests of his 
 fellow-men, his simple, fervent soul was easily 
 aroused, and whenever he took sides with a cause, 
 it was with all his heart and strength. Naturally, 
 he sympathized with Ireland in her long-continued 
 woes, and for her sake he wrote Erin's Flag. Here, 
 indeed, is the cry of a warrior-priest : 
 
 "Lift it up ! lift it up ! the old banner of green ! 
 The blood of her sons has but brightened its sheen; 
 What though the tyrant has trampled it down, 
 Are its folds not emblazoned with deeds of renown? 
 What though for ages it droops in the dust, 
 Shall it droop thus forever? No, no! God is just." 
 
 And it was this same zeal for movements which 
 he conceived to be right that brought forth his two 
 most famous poems. The Conquered Banner and 
 The Sword of Robert Lee. 
 
 The first was written in the heat of the emotions 
 produced by the surrender of Lee; and its lines, 
 created in such sorrow, have called for words of 
 admiration from both North and South. 
 
 "Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary; 
 Round 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 gave it ; 
 And its foes now scorn and brave it; 
 
 Furl it, hide it— let it rest !" 
 
Abram Ryan 319 
 
 The Sword of Robert Lee has much of the same 
 earnestness. Many a time its words have been 
 repeated by those who knew and loved the leader : 
 
 "Forth from its scabbard all in vain 
 Bright flashed the sword of Lee ; 
 'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, 
 It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain. 
 Defeated, yet without a stain, 
 Proudly and peacefully." 
 
 It may have been noticed that there is frequently 
 a deeply religious tone in Ryan's poetry. Just here 
 is where some of his noblest sentiments find expres- 
 sion. We find here the voice of the willing martyr ; 
 here is a very joy in every sacrifice. Note how in 
 his Song of the Mystic he speaks exultingly, as one 
 rescued from the vanities of the world : 
 
 "I walk down the Valley of Silence, 
 
 Down the dim, voiceless valley — alone; 
 
 And I hear not the fall of a footstep 
 Around me, save God's and my own. 
 
 And the hush of my heart is as holy 
 As hovers where angels have flown ! 
 
 "I walked in the world with the worldly; 
 
 I craved what the world never gave; 
 And I said: 'In the world each Ideal 
 
 That shines like a star in life's way. 
 Is wrecked on the shores of the Real, 
 
 And sleeps like a dream in a grave.' 
 
 "And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human, 
 And I moaned 'mid the mazes of men. 
 
 Till I knelt long ago, at an altar, 
 And I heard a voice call me. Since then 
 
 I walk down the Valley of Silence 
 That lies far beyond mortal ken." 
 
 As Dr. Painter says, in his Poets of the South, 
 "the reader seems to be moving about in cathedral 
 glooms, by dimly lighted altars, with sad procession 
 of ghostly penitents and mourners fading into the 
 darkness to the sad music of lamenting choirs. But 
 
320 Abram Ryan 
 
 the light which falls upon the gloom is the light of 
 heaven, and amid tears and sighs, over farewells and 
 crushed happiness, hope sings a vigorous though 
 subdued strain." Many examples of Ryan's beauty 
 of thought might be given; but all would be found 
 to have something of the sense of mystery or unearth- 
 liness. He speaks as though all were a vague, 
 strange dream; he is like his Poets: 
 
 "They are all dreamers; in the day and night 
 
 Ever across their souls 
 The wondrous mystery of the dark or bright 
 In mystic rhythm rolls." 
 
 In summing up, then, the marked characteristics 
 of this poet, we find an unmistakable tone of sadness, 
 an unaffected longing for death, a contrasting note 
 of encouragement, a bold call to action, a gentle voice 
 of meditation, an ever present elevation of thought 
 and of sentiment, a deep religious fervor, and, with 
 it all, a singular sweetness and power in his unstudied 
 yet artistic expression. Spontaneous heart-felt emo- 
 tions are given in fluent and melodious phrases. He 
 does not indeed reach far heights of philosophy; nor 
 is he a would-be solver of the mighty questions of 
 the universe. Ever subjective, he tells not so much 
 of the nature about him as of the nature within him. 
 He is but the interpreter of the one human heart that 
 he knew so well. The historian of a human soul is 
 not soon forgotten, and such a one is Ryan. Inas- 
 much as he has told in musical words those emotions 
 which come to all of us at our best moments, we have 
 learned to love him. And it is doubtful today 
 whether his fame has diminished one whit. On the 
 contrary, there are indications that some of his poems 
 are reaching a much wider audience now than ever 
 before. 
 
Henry Timrod 321 
 
 XI 
 
 The life-stories of the three Southern poets, Tim- 
 rod, Ha)Tie, and Lanier, compose some of the sad- 
 dest pages in the history of American 
 Henry Literature; but Timrod's cup of exist- 
 
 Timrod ence was filled to the brim with by far 
 
 — the bitterest disappointments. Time 
 
 (1829=1867) after time the success which his genius 
 and efforts so richly deserved was 
 almost within his grasp, and yet as often it vanished. 
 But, at the same time, his nature demanded apprecia- 
 tion. "Success," said his friend, Dr. Bruns, "was to 
 him a bitter need, for not his living merely, but his 
 life was staked upon it." 
 
 Henry Timrod (1829- 1867) was born at 
 Charleston, South Carolina, of cultured, versatile, 
 and influential parents. His father, a skilled 
 mechanic who charmed every hearer by his brilliant 
 conversation, had, as a boy, voluntarily become a 
 book-binder's apprentice "in order to have plenty 
 of books to read," while the mother was so filled 
 with sincere love for Nature that she consciously 
 and purposely trained her boy to discern the beauties 
 in trees and flowers, streams and skies. The child 
 received a good elementary education in a private 
 school at Charleston, and, when sixteen, entered 
 the University of Georgia. Poverty prevented his 
 finishing the four-year course, but during the time 
 he did attend, he gained a surprisingly wide knowl- 
 edge of Latin, Greek, and English Literature. 
 
 What wa§ of greater import was the fact that 
 while in this institution his poems first appeared in 
 print. Not that this was his first effort in verse. 
 As a small boy he had felt the prompting. Says 
 his friend, Hayne, "I well remember the exultation 
 with which he showed me one morning his earliest 
 
322 Henry Timrod 
 
 consecutive attempt at verse making. Our down- 
 east school-master, however, could boast of no turn 
 for sentiment, and, having remarked our hobnob- 
 bing, meanly assaulted us in the rear, effectually 
 quenching for the time all aesthetic enthusiasm." 
 This inclination toward poetry he had inherited from 
 his father, one of whose poems, To Time — the Old 
 Traveller, Irving had declared equal to any lyric 
 written by Tom Moore : 
 
 "They slander thee, Old Traveller, 
 
 Who say that thy delight 
 Is to scatter ruin far and wide, 
 
 In thy wantonness of might. 
 For not a leaf that falleth 
 
 Before thy restless wings. 
 But in thy flight, thou changest it 
 
 To a thousand brighter things." 
 
 After the college course, Timrod returned to 
 Charleston and there took up the study of law. The 
 usual result among would-be poet-lawyer occurred. 
 Apparently the necessary intellectual power was his, 
 but his ability in oratory was decidedly limited ; and 
 this, in the old days, was the lawyer's principal 
 stock in trade. He now conceived the idea of 
 becoming a college professor of literature — a posi- 
 tion for which he was well fitted both by zealous 
 study and by keen, appreciative insight ; yet such a 
 position was never offered him. Taking up private 
 tutoring as a vocation, or, perhaps, as an avocation — 
 for he was continually writing — he spent ten years 
 in the school-room. That his heart was never in 
 this work, however, may be discerned by the readi- 
 ness with which he frequently hastened back to 
 Charleston to join the circle of writer;s gathered at 
 the home of William Gilmore Simms. 
 
 To his early work he had always signed the name 
 Aglaus, but now as the notices of his poems became 
 more and more favorable, he allowed their real 
 
Henry Timrod 323 
 
 authorship to be known. During the decade of 
 teaching he was a welcomed contributor to Charles- 
 ton papers and to the Southern Literary Messenger 
 at Richmond, and later to Russell's Magazine at 
 Charleston. It was in i860 that he collected his 
 volume of verse, published, not in the South, but at 
 Boston. But poetry has rarely been a paying com- 
 modity, nor was it likely to be such in the stormy 
 season preceding the Civil War, and, therefore, 
 though the book received many favorable comments, 
 Timrod received few dollars. 
 
 Now came the great struggle in the nation's life. 
 The poet was physically unable to bear arms, but, 
 for a short time, he was in the field as a war cor- 
 respondent for a Charleston paper. Even this was 
 too much for his already weakening body, while the 
 horrors of war stirred his sensitive nature to such 
 a pitch as to incapacitate him for any active work; 
 and, consequently, we find him in 1864 at Colum- 
 bia as an associate-editor of the South Caro- 
 linian. Now indeed success seemed to be his. He 
 married the one he had long loved, the "Saxon 
 Kate," the fair-haired English girl whom he speaks 
 of in several poems, and a son was born to him. The 
 paper prospered; he established a home. In little 
 more than a year General Sherman's army had 
 destroyed his printing-office; his boy had died; and 
 he found himself a destitute invalid. He sold his 
 household belongings for food. With a strange 
 mingling of self-pity, grim humor, and bitterness, 
 he wrote to Hayne: "We have — let me see — ^yes, 
 we have eaten two silver pitchers, one or two dozen 
 silver forks, several sofas, innumerable chairs, and 
 a huge — ^bedstead !" Now came the additional battle 
 with death. He strove manfully to drive back the 
 weakness that steadily crept over him ; but at length 
 he became unable to hold even the poor positions 
 
324 Henry Timrod 
 
 given him. In 1867 he was sent to visit Hayne at 
 Copse Hill, Georgia, and for a time seemed to 
 improve greatly. But consumption gained in the 
 battle, and shortly after his return to South Caro- 
 lina he was laid to rest. 
 
 In spite of all his suffering, it was a rest for which 
 he never longed; a healthy desire for life was ever 
 his. As he lay dying, his sister said to him, "You 
 will soon be at rest now." "Yes, my sister," he 
 replied, "but love is sweeter than rest." There was 
 in his nature, from first to last, this same sweetness 
 of love that made everybody his friend. Weak in 
 body, he was strong in soul. He had a certain 
 definite ideal — to become a poet worthy of the name 
 — and, like the hero in Browning's Child Roland to 
 the Dark Tower Came, he passed through untold 
 hardships, griefs, pain, and disappointments, and 
 strove onward and upward. In spite of his merit 
 and the praise which his friends bestowed upon him, 
 he was a most modest man ; indeed, if the accounts 
 be accurate, even bashful. Hayne describes him as 
 "shy, but neither melancholy nor morose; he was 
 passionate, impulsive, eagerly ambitious, with a 
 thirst for knowledge hard to satiate." Says Dr. 
 Bruns, "In society he was the shyest and most 
 undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom 
 he trusted he would pour out his inmost heart ; but 
 let two or three be gathered together, above all, 
 introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, 
 unobtrusive listener, thoug'h never a moody nor 
 uncongenial one." 
 
 Such was the man ; what of his work ? Like the 
 great majority of Southern poets, he was a lover of 
 Nature, and a most sincere one. Very few are the 
 poems that do not contain some notice of the beauties 
 of the world about him. For him, as he says in 
 Katie, 
 
Henry Timrod 325 
 
 "The blackbird from a neighboring thorn 
 With music brims the cup of morn, 
 And in a thick, melodious rain. 
 The mavis pours her mellow strain !" 
 
 None but a poet filled with a passion for the "visible 
 forms" about him could have written so truly, so 
 lovingly of Nature as he has done in many a stanza. 
 His is not the general and rather vague admiration 
 that is exemplified in Thanatopsis; instead, he speaks 
 of scenes and objects with lingering detail. Note 
 these lines from The Summer Bower: 
 
 "Trees of the soberest hues, thick-leaved and tall. 
 Arch it o'er-head and column it around, 
 Framing a covert, natural and wild. 
 Domelike and dim, though nowhere so enclosed 
 But that the gentlest breezes reach the spot 
 Unwearied and unweakened. Sound is here 
 A transient and unfrequent visitor; 
 
 The turf is soft and green, but not a flower 
 
 Lights the recess, save one, star-shaped and bright — 
 
 I do not know its name — which here and there 
 
 Gleams like a sapphire set in emerald. 
 
 A narrow opening in the branched roof, 
 
 A single one, is large enough to show, 
 
 With that half glimpse a dreamer loves so much. 
 
 The blue air and the blessing of the sky." 
 
 And what tenderness there is in this man toward 
 the unnoticed things of field and forest ! Like that 
 ideal Nature-lover, Adam Moss, in A Kentucky 
 Cardinal, he cannot bear to destroy the humblest 
 creation of God. His is the gentle thoughtfulness 
 that forbears to crush a plant or pluck a flower. 
 Thus, speaking of these things, in Flower Life, he 
 says: 
 
 "It may be matter for a smile — 
 And I laughed secretly the while 
 
 I speak the fancy out — 
 But that they love and that they woo. 
 And that they often marry too. 
 And do as noisier creatures do, 
 
 I've not the faintest doubt. 
 
326 Henry Timrod 
 
 "And so I cannot deem it right 
 To take them from the glad sunlight 
 
 As I have sometimes dared; 
 Though not without an anxious sigh 
 Lest this should break sorne gentle tie, 
 Some covenant of friendship, I 
 
 Had better far have spared." 
 
 But, now, there is a difference between Timrod's 
 love of Nature and that of almost all other Southern 
 writers; beneath its beauty he sees a deep signifi- 
 cance. These lowly flowers, these lofty trees, have 
 a message for men. His is no superficial apprecia- 
 tion of colors and odors. In The Summer Bower, 
 after describing his rural retreat, he continues : 
 
 "Thither I always bent my idle steps, 
 When griefs depressed, or joys disturbed my heart. 
 And found the calm I looked for, or returned 
 With quiet rapture in my soul." 
 
 Here is the identical message of Bryant's "Go forth 
 and list to Nature's teaching." But never was he 
 the somewhat distant admirer that we find in 
 Bryant, nor is there aught of sternness in his admi- 
 ration ; but, rather, Timrod is to Nature as the lover 
 to his beloved — gentle, intimate, caressing. With 
 Longfellow he seems to speak these words : 
 
 "Go to the woods and hills. No tears 
 Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." 
 
 But beneath this sweetness and grace of our natural 
 environment is the deeper character. The mountains 
 and the valleys may indeed offer solace to him who 
 suffers in a noble cause; 
 
 "But for the pains, the fever, and the fret 
 Engendered of a weak, unquiet heart, 
 She hath no solace ; and who seeks her when 
 These be the troubles over which he moans, 
 Reads in her unreplying lineaments 
 Rebukes that, to the guilty consciousness, 
 Strike like contempt." 
 
Henry Timrod 327 
 
 This distinguishing trait in Timrod' s work leads 
 us to another difference between him and the numer- 
 ous minor singers about him — the unusual depth 
 and beauty of his thought. In the specimens of his 
 verse already cited, some idea of this may be gained ; 
 and the number of such examples might be multi- 
 plied many times. The Past, a widely copied poem 
 after its appearance in the Southern Literary Mes- 
 senger, is an illustration. It contains the Browning- 
 like message that, in the main, we are the results 
 of all our experiences. Our past, he declares, does 
 not fade into nothingness : 
 
 "Ah me ! — not dies — no more than spirit dies ; 
 
 But in a change like death is clothed with wings ; 
 A serious angel, with entranced eyes, 
 Looking to far-oflf celestial things." 
 
 As may be easily seen, Timrod does not speak a 
 thought as a mere bald truth; the artist was too 
 strong in him for that. Beauty and depth are con- 
 stantly mingling traits. Thus, in one of his son- 
 nets, he speaks in this picturesque and yet significant 
 language : 
 
 "Life ever seems as from its present sight 
 It aimed to lure us. Mountains of the past 
 It melts, with all their crags and caverns vast, 
 Into a purple cloud ! Across the night 
 Which hides what is to be, it shoots a light 
 All rosy with the yet unrisen dawn. 
 Not the nearer daisies, but yon distant height 
 Attracts us lying on this emerald lawn." 
 
 He at times steps out of the trodden path and 
 shows a new and yet wholly acceptable view-point. 
 Such a peculiarity — and it is indeed a peculiarity 
 among Southern poets of the nineteenth century — 
 is well illustrated in his Hymn sung at the conse- 
 cration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston. Con- 
 
328 Henry Timrod 
 
 trast these words with the dismal musings of Poe's 
 The Conqueror-Worm: 
 
 "Thou shouldst be crowned with fadeless flowers 
 
 Of lasting fragrance and celestial hue; 
 Or be thy couch amid funeral bowers, 
 But let the stars and sunlight sparkle through.'' 
 
 Again, note the general fitness of the last stanza 
 from this same poem : 
 
 "Heaven ! shed thy most propitious dews around ! 
 
 Ye holy stars ! look down with tender eyes, 
 And gild and guard and consecrate the ground 
 Where we may rest, and whence we pray to rise.'' 
 
 It is this emotionalism, this colorful bedecking of a 
 naked thought, that separates poetry from philoso- 
 phy, and shows, at the same time, the great poet. 
 Is there not more power of appeal in these lines 
 from a Timrod sonnet than in the deepest disserta- 
 tion on love ? 
 
 "Ah me ! why may not love and life be one ? 
 Why walk we thus alone, when by our side 
 Love, like a visible God, might be our guide? 
 How would the marts grow noble ! and the street. 
 Worn like a dungeon floor by weary feet, 
 Seem then a golden court-way of the Sun !" 
 
 The ability to see possible wonders in the com- 
 monplace things of life is an ever-present trait of a 
 great man. A great man without an imagination 
 is an impossibility. And what a change in the 
 appearance of the Universe the imagination of a 
 genius can make! This is another distinguishing 
 feature of Timrod's poems; he sees the beauty of 
 the common. In his sonnet to the Poet, he thus 
 advises all verse-writers : 
 
 "Always, O bard, humility is power : 
 And thou mayst draw from matters of the hearth 
 Truth wide as nations, and as deep as love." 
 
Henry Timrod 329 
 
 Again, in the same poem, he declares that 
 
 "The brightest stars are nearest to the earth, 
 And we may track the mighty sun above, 
 Even by the shadow of a slender flower." 
 
 Beauty is everywhere, as Timrod sees the world. 
 Such an imagination can paint the murky air oi 
 the dingy city itself with figures full of grace. A 
 sonnet telling of his pent-up town-life, concludes 
 with such a philosophy: 
 
 "There's no unimpressive spot on earth. 
 
 Clouds do not scorn us : yonder factory's smoke 
 Looked like a golden mist when morning broke." 
 
 Perhaps the best example of Timrod's power in 
 glorifying the commonplace is found in The Cotton 
 Boll. In that really wonderful meditation he looks 
 at the boll — a rather unattractive object to most 
 people — and thinks of the strange power latent 
 within it. Here, indeed, is one of the broadest 
 sweeps of vision in all American poetry. This bit 
 of fibre, in itself but a frail thing, rules 
 
 "That mighty commerce which, confined 
 To the mean channels of no selfish mart. 
 Goes out to every shore 
 
 Of the broad earth, and through the sea with ships 
 That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips 
 In alien lands; 
 
 Joins with a delicate web remotest strands ; 
 And gladdening rich and poor, 
 Doth gild Parisian domes. 
 Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes. 
 And only bounds its blessings by mankind." 
 
 But it must not be thought that Timrod is a mere 
 contemplator, an ever calm philosopher. There were 
 times in his life when emotion thrilled him with a 
 contagious vigor, and at such moments he poured 
 
330 Henry Timrod 
 
 forth a torrent of surging words. It is a great step 
 between such a stanza as 
 
 "There's a maiden, and her name is . . . 
 Hist ! was that a rose-leaf fell ? 
 See, the rose is listening, Lily, 
 And the rose may tell." 
 
 and his words to the Spirit of Storm : 
 
 "Come down in thy strength on the deep ! 
 
 Worse dangers there are in life. 
 When the waves are still, and the skies look fair. 
 Than in their wildest strife." 
 
 The extraordinary energy of expression seen in some 
 of Timrod's poems is one of the many Hterary results 
 of the Civil War. No man in America has excelled 
 him in these few martial songs, written, for the most 
 part, near the beginning of the long struggle. And, 
 in fact, it was these war lyrics that gained for him 
 his greatest audiences. The spirit of Carolina and 
 A Cry to Arms enforced attention. There was a 
 fierce demand in such words as these : 
 
 "Ho! woodsmen of the mountain side! 
 
 Ho ! dwellers in the vales ! 
 Ho! ye who by the chafing tide 
 
 Have roughened in the gales ! 
 Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot, 
 
 Lay by the bloodless spade; 
 Let desk and case and counter rot. 
 
 And burn your books of trade." 
 
 And Carolina, a poem long read by hearth and by 
 campfire — what intensity is in it! 
 
 "I hear a murmur as of waves 
 That grope their way through sunless caves, 
 Like bodies struggling in their graves, 
 Carolina ! 
 
 "And now it deepens; slow and grand 
 It swells, as rolling to the land. 
 An ocean broke upon the strand. 
 Carolina !" 
 
Henry Timrod 331 
 
 The man who can write thus effectively does not 
 do so by chance; technical skill is necessary. Tim- 
 rod has a passion for perfection. No matter how 
 deep the truth or how mighty the emotion that he 
 expresses, the artist is always present, and the 
 roughness of a bare thought gives place to the 
 polished utterance of a deep sentiment. Truth and 
 Beauty join efforts in nearly all that he has written. 
 Of course Timrod realizes that poetry is not a mere 
 matter of artistic expression. In one of his earliest 
 efforts, A Vision of Poetry, he embraces under the 
 subjects fit for verse 
 
 "All lovely things, and gentle — the sweet laugh 
 Of children, girlhood's kiss, and friendship's clasp, 
 
 The boy that sporteth with the old man's staff, 
 The baby, and the breast its fingers clasp — 
 
 All that exalts the ground of happiness, 
 All griefs that hallow, and all joys that bless." 
 
 A believer in inspiration, he at the same time sees 
 the need of patient toil. He recognizes both the 
 moment "when the great thought strikes for the first 
 time along the brain and flushes the cheek with the 
 sudden revelation of beauty or grandeur, and the 
 hour of patient, elaborate execution." Hence there 
 are at all times in his work absolute clearness and a 
 remarkable melody; the thoueht and the expression 
 are at all times worthy of one another. 
 
 That he understood exactly through what princi- 
 ples he might gain artistic effects, may be seen in 
 his own explanation of the science of poetry. Says 
 he, "However abstract be his thought, the poet is 
 compelled by his passion-fused imagination to give 
 it life, form, or color. Hence the necessity of 
 employing the sensuous or concrete words of the 
 language." The following of this theory led, of 
 course, to that beauty, imagery, and picturesque- 
 ness which lift Timrod so far above the ordinary 
 
332 Henry Timrod 
 
 rhyme-maker. He was something of a master of 
 words and, with Tennysonian art, he has built a few 
 notable structures of verbal melody. He summons 
 to his assistance every possible means — ^imagery, 
 figures of speech, archaic words, bold comparisons : 
 
 ". . . . Above I saw 
 
 The pallid sky look through a glazed mist 
 Like a blue eye in death." 
 
 So successfully does he follow his ideas that at times 
 the verse is indeed "colorless, sculptural, Poean, and 
 you forget the fact of reading, so wonderfully does 
 the thought become an almost visible presence." 
 Simplicity and grandeur are well mingled in him. 
 His Ode delivered during the decoration of graves 
 in Magnolia Cemetery in 1867, is considered by 
 many critics as one of the nearest approaches to 
 perfection in American poetry; and it is this same 
 simplicity, mingled with loftiness of sentiment, that 
 gains the strong effect here. The opening lines 
 show the nature of the piece : 
 
 "Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, 
 Sleep, martyrs to a fallen cause; 
 Though yet no marble column craves 
 The pilgrim here to pause." 
 
 The last stanza is even more worthy of admiration : 
 
 "Stoop, angels, hither from the skies ! 
 There is no holier spot of ground 
 Than where defeated valor lies, 
 By mourning beauty crowned." 
 
 This, says Prof. W. P. Trent, in his Life of William 
 Gilmore Simms, "approximates perfection, — the 
 perfection of Collins, not that of Lovelace." And, 
 again, in this same poem, may be noted another 
 happy trait of Timrod's — the felicity of thought at 
 the very beginning and at the very end of his poems. 
 
Henry Timrod 333 
 
 Thus a double advantage is gained; for the atten- 
 tion is quickly attracted, while at the last the thought 
 lingers in the mind. 
 
 Timrod, again like Tennyson, essays many forms 
 of verse, and for the most part is highly successful 
 in his varied efforts. Undoubtedly his sonnets are 
 among the very best in American Literature. They 
 have the proper concentration, the extreme neatness 
 of thought, and the ever-evident trend toward the 
 final climax so necessary in this most difficult and 
 artificial type of poetry. Aside from his admiration 
 for this form, he seems to prefer the simple three 
 and four line stanzas; and these indeed fit well the 
 sweet simplicity of his thoughts and sentiments. 
 That he was influenced in this simplicity, as well as 
 in other traits, by the Romantic movement and early 
 Victorian literature, is very apparent. His Nature 
 poems show something of his study of Wordsworth ; 
 his art, as has been mentioned, is distinctly Tenny- 
 sonian. But the spirit of it all is ever his own. 
 
 True, impassioned, musical, he is deserving of all 
 the praise that has been his. And in later years the 
 amount has not been small nor the spirit of it unen- 
 thusiastic. "Timrod's," says Professor Trent, "was 
 probably the most finely endowed mind to be found 
 in Carolina, or indeed in the whole South at this 
 period." Richard Henry Stoddard speaks of him 
 as "the ablest poet the South has yet produced." 
 Whether or not, as we remember Lanier, this state- 
 ment sounds a little extravagant, it at least shows 
 the growing spirit in regard to the man. Timrod 
 seems at last to be coming to his own. His rightful 
 heritage of fame has long been delayed; but time 
 brings in due season rewards to the just. 
 
 "In seeds of laurel in the earth 
 
 The blossom of your fame is blown, 
 And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 
 The shaft is in the stone !" 
 
334 Paul Hamilton Hayne 
 
 XII 
 
 The world knew far more of Paul Hamilton 
 Hayne (1830- 1886) during his life-time than it did 
 
 of Timrod. In fact, his merit was 
 Paul recognized to an extent seldom known 
 
 Hamilton to writers from the South. Yet, the 
 Hayne story of his life is of the same suffer- 
 
 — ing and sorrow as are the stories of 
 
 (1830=1886) his friends, Timrod and Lanier. He 
 
 was born at Charleston, South Caro- 
 lina, of a family noted for its political and social 
 influence. Early in the boy's life, his father, a navy 
 ofificer, died, and Hayne went to the home of his 
 uncle, Robert Y. Hayne. There, with an inherited 
 fortune of his own and with the wealth of his noted 
 relative at his command, he had full opportunity to 
 develop the talents that were his; and we find him 
 receiving the best in education that Charleston could 
 offer. After graduating from Charleston College, 
 he took the inevitable course in law, and, of course, 
 never practised it. The one work that he loved was 
 that of writing; for his words in The Will and the 
 Wing were indeed true to his ambition : 
 
 "Yet would I rather in the outward state 
 
 Of Song's immortal temple lay me down, 
 A beggar basking by that radiant gate 
 Than bend beneath the haughtiest empire's crown." 
 
 He became one of the editors of The Southern 
 Literary Gazette, published at Charleston; then fol- 
 lowed his editorship of Russell's Magazine, at 
 Charleston ; while at all times his contributions were 
 welcomed by The Southern Literary Messenger. 
 
 Those early years of life must have been very 
 happy ones. In 1852 he married the beloved woman 
 to whom several of his poems were addressed; his 
 fortune was ample; his social and literary environ-' 
 ments were most pleasant ; he had the friendship of 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 335 
 
 such men as Simms, Poe, Timrod, and several other 
 great American writers; and, undisturbed, he was 
 producing work of a noble quality. But, with the 
 coming of the war, such days ceased. Too frail to 
 bear arms, he joined the staff of Governor Pickens, 
 but ill health forced him to resign ; in the bombard- 
 ment of Charleston his home and library were 
 destroyed; the family silver, all of great value, was 
 swept away in Sherman's March to the Sea ; and at 
 the close of the great conflict the poet found himself 
 an invalid with a family to support and yet with 
 absolutely no means of support. 
 
 He soon left Charleston and went to the barren 
 pine-bluffs near Augusta, Georgia, and there on a 
 piece of land which was given the name "Copse Hill" 
 he erected a humble cottage. It must have been a 
 painful contrast — the luxurious home in a cultured 
 city and this rude hut in a forest wilderness. He 
 wrote of the place : "Our little apology for a dwell- 
 ing was perched on the top of a hill, overlooking in 
 several directions hundreds of leagues of pine barren ; 
 there was as yet neither garden nor enclosure near it. 
 and a wilder, more desolate, and savage-looking 
 home could hardly have been seen east of the 
 prairies." Everything was stinted in that home. 
 The fare was of the cheapest; the furniture was 
 largely home-made. Many of the poet's best pro- 
 ductions were written at a desk made of a work- 
 bench left by the carpenters. But, yet, the artistic 
 character of the ever cheerful wife transformed the 
 place. Pictures from art-magazines, and many 
 hand-made ornaments stole away the barrenness of 
 the interior. Born into luxury and high culture, 
 this wonderful helpmate did the cooking and the 
 family washing! Well might Hayne speak of her 
 in The Bonny Brown Hand: 
 
 "That little hand, that fervent hand of bonny brown, 
 The hand which points the path to Heaven, yet makes 
 A Heaven of earth." 
 
336 Paul Hamilton Hayne 
 
 And, too, his friendships were comforting. Many 
 of his old acquaintances visited him from time to 
 time, notably Timrod, of whom he speaks in Under 
 the Pines: 
 
 "O Tree ! against thy mighty trunk he laid 
 His weary head; thy shade 
 
 Stole o'er him like the first cool spell of sleep ! 
 It brought a peace so deep, 
 The unquiet passion died from ovit his eyes, 
 As lightnings from stilled skies." 
 
 Now and then he received letters from men of 
 international fame — Longfellow, Whittier, Bayard 
 Taylor, Swinburne, and many others, and added to 
 these messages were many words of gratitude from 
 readers of his poems. One man wrote that he had 
 been saved from suicide by reading the Lyric of 
 Action; a little boy saved five dollars and sent it with 
 the request that some daily reminder be bought with 
 it. His poems, too, were gaining a more than 
 sectional fame. Poems (1855), Sonnets and Other 
 Poems ( 1857), and Avolio and Other Poems( 1859) 
 had been widely noticed, and his war poems, though 
 not so spirited as Timrod's, had done much to arouse 
 the South, and were, of course, widely known. Now 
 from this silent isolated spot, he sent forth such 
 works as Legend and Lyrics (1872), the edition of 
 Timrod's Poems, The Mountain of the Lovers and 
 Other Poems (1875), Life of Robert Y. Hayne 
 (1878), Life of Hugh S. Legare (1878), the Com- 
 plete Edition of 1882, and many essays and poems 
 never collected. 
 
 Yet, all these endeavors brought him but little 
 money, and his constant air of cheerfulness must, at 
 times, have been affected. His education had created 
 in him many tastes which now went unsatisfied — the 
 love of books, art, music, and cultured companions ; 
 and the wilderness could offer none of these. More- 
 over, he was constantly growing weaker in body, 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 337 
 
 and he realized that death was not distant. But one 
 of his sonnets contains these words : 
 
 "Here far from worldly strife and pompous show, 
 The peaceful seasons glide serenely by, 
 
 Fields, lonely paths, the one small glimmering rill 
 
 That twinkles like a wood-fay's mirthful eye. 
 Under moist bayleaves, clouds fantastical 
 That float and change at the light breeze's will, — 
 To me, thus lapped in sylvan luxury. 
 Are more than death of kings or empires' fall." 
 
 Thus the years passed. Perhaps such a life was 
 not destructive to his genius; for he was ever a 
 dreamer, ready to say, 
 
 "Let the world roll blindly on ! 
 Give me shadow, give me sun, 
 And a perfumed eve as this is." 
 
 The end of the struggle came July 6, 1886. He, 
 too, like Timrod, had a strong love for life. 
 "Behold," said he, 
 
 "Behold ! who knows what soul-dividing bars 
 Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars ? 
 Nor can love deem the face of death is fair : 
 A little while I still would linger here." 
 
 Like the majority of the Southern poets, Hayne 
 did not use poetry as a means of inculcating a 
 philosophy. Verse was to him almost entirely a 
 matter of emotions. And what a variety of senti- 
 ments he touched upon! Dealing mainly with 
 familiar objects and scenes, he told simply what he 
 felt, and, because he felt intensely, he was effective 
 in communicating his emotions. The words of 
 Edwin P. Whipple concerning Legends and Lyrics 
 might be applied to the greater part of Hayne's work : 
 "It contains the ripest results of the genius of the 
 
 most eminent of living Southern poets 
 
 We cannot see that the American poet is one whit 
 
338 Paul Hamilton Hayne 
 
 inferior to his accomplished English contemporary 
 in tenderness and ideal charm, while we venture to 
 say he has more than Morris the true poetic enthu- 
 siasm and unwithholding abandonment to the senti- 
 ment suggested by his themes." 
 
 During the war period his poems did much for 
 the cause of the Confederacy; but few, if any, of 
 these battle-lyrics have the strength and fierceness 
 of Timrod's efforts during the same period. Hayne,, 
 like Longfellow, had the greater smoothness and 
 beauty; but Timrod, like Whittier, had the greater 
 ruggedness and vigor. True, Hayne produced some 
 rather thrilling songs; as, for instance. The Black 
 Flag: 
 
 "Then up with the sable banner ! 
 
 Let it thrill to the War-God's breath, 
 For we march to the watchword — Vengeance! 
 And we follow the captain — Death !" 
 
 But this was not the true Hayne. His was not 
 the spirit of a reformer, but, rather, of a dreamer in 
 love with his fancies. Far more natural for him are 
 such words as those in Cloud Pictures, when, looking 
 upon the sky, he sees 
 
 "Castles, with guarded roof, and turret tall, 
 Great sloping archway, and majestic wall, 
 Sapped by the breezes to their noiseless fall ! 
 
 "Pagodas vague ! above whose towers outstream 
 Banners that wave with motions of a dream — 
 Rising or drooping in the noontide gleam ; 
 
 "Gray lines of Orient pilgrims, a gaunt band 
 On famished camels, o'er the desert sand 
 Plodding toward their prophet's Holy Land." 
 
 There is nearly always mingled with this senti- 
 ment a wistfulness almost melancholy, and no doubt 
 such a trait was very natural to a man, hungering, 
 as he surely did, for those greater gifts which educa- 
 tion had trained him to enjoy. 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 339 
 
 "I pine for beauty; beauty of fresh mien, 
 And gentle utterance, and the charm serene. 
 
 Wherewith the hue of mystic dreamland glows ; 
 
 I pine for lulling music, the repose 
 Of low-voiced waters, in some realm between 
 The perfect Adenne and this clouded scene 
 
 Of love's sad loss, and passion's mournful throes." 
 
 And yet, it must not be thought that he is a dis- 
 contented weakling, longing for eternal ease. He 
 possesses a surprising firmness of soul, and, coupled 
 with this trait, is an unwavering faith in a divine 
 guidance. On the Decline of Faith is an admirable 
 illustration of this simple trust. Note but these lines 
 from the poem : 
 
 "O man ! when faith succumbs, and reason reels. 
 Turn to thy heart that reasons not but feels. 
 Creeds change; shrines perish; still (her instinct saith) 
 Still the soul, the soul must conquer Death, 
 Hold fast to God, and God will hold thee fast." 
 
 His Lyric of Action should delight every admirer 
 of sturdy manhood. Persevering vigor sounds 
 through every line of it, and, coming, as it does, from 
 a man reduced from great wealth to great poverty 
 and exiled from refined, congenial company tO' a 
 silent wilderness, the poem should stand as one of the 
 most remarkable exhortations in American Litera- 
 ture. 
 
 '"Tis the part of a coward to brood 
 
 O'er the past that is withered and dead: 
 What though the heart's roses are ashes and du^t ? 
 What though the heart's music be fled? 
 Still shine the grand heavens o'er head. 
 Where the voice of an angel thrills clear on the soul, 
 'Gird about thee thine armor, press on to the goal !' " 
 
 Margaret Preston has said of Hayne : "There is 
 no poet in America who has written more lovingly 
 or discriminatingly about Nature in her varying 
 aspects." Doubtless these words are true, especially 
 the expression "discriminatingly," for more than 
 
340 Paul Hamilton Hayne 
 
 Timrod he is a lover of certain special forms of 
 Nature. How often, for instance, does he write of 
 the pine-tree : Under the Pine, The Pine's Mystery, 
 The Voice in the Pines, The Dryad of the Pine, 
 Aspect of the Pines — these, and many others, tell of 
 the mysterious charm that the tree possesses for him. 
 
 "Passion and mystery murmur through the leaves, 
 
 Passion and mystery, touched by deathless pain — 
 Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves 
 For something lost that shall not live again !" 
 
 And just here is another difference between Hayne 
 and other Southern poets ; he seems to stand in awe 
 before Nature. Beneath the sweet scenes and sounds 
 and odors there is a depth of mystery that he cannot 
 quite fathom. As he says, he hears 
 
 "Low words of alien music, softly sung, 
 And rhythmic sighs in some sweet unknown tongue." 
 
 Yet, he is at all times very close to the concrete 
 elements of Nature. Hamilton Mabie has said of 
 him : "He touched the two themes which lay deepest 
 in his heart, love of nature and love of the personal 
 ideals of the Old South, with perfect sincerity, with 
 deep tenderness, and with lyric sweetness." But 
 evidently it is in the expression of the first of these 
 themes that he is happiest. Such descriptions as 
 In the Wheat Field: 
 
 "Hark ! to the droning of drowsy wings, 
 
 To the honey-bees as they go and come, 
 To the 'boomer' scarce rounding his sultry rings. 
 
 The gnat's small horn and the beetle's hum ; 
 And hark to the locust ! — noon's one shrill song, 
 Like the tingling steel of an elfin gong 
 Grows lower through quavers of long retreat 
 To swoon on the dazzled and distant wheat." 
 
 and The Mocking Bird: 
 
 "It rose in dazzling spirals overhead. 
 Whence to wild sweetness wed, 
 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 341 
 
 Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill ; 
 
 The very leaves grew still 
 
 On the charmed trees to hearken ; while for me, 
 
 Heart-trilled to ecstasy, 
 
 I followed." 
 
 and Aspect of the Pines: 
 
 "Tall, sombre, grim, against the morning sky 
 
 They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs, 
 Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully. 
 As if from realms of mystical despairs." 
 
 Such descriptions as these are from a man whose 
 acquaintance with trees and flowers, mountains and 
 valleys is most intimate. How tenderly he speaks 
 of various plants ; the spirea, for instance, in his poem 
 by that name : 
 
 "So rare, so soft, its blossoms seem 
 
 Half-woven of moonshine's misty bars, 
 And tremulous as the tender gleam 
 Of the far Southland stars." 
 
 But why continue the list? His poems of Nature 
 have called forth words of admiration from numer- 
 ous critics. The words of Maurice Thompson con- 
 cerning Muscadines may fairly be applied to not a 
 few of these descriptions : "What luxury of South- 
 ern sights, sounds, tastes, perfume, and colors we 
 enjoy in his poem. Muscadines, than which no lesser 
 genius than Shelley or Keats ever penned a better or 
 a richer." Surely, the lonely poet, living amid the 
 pine barrens of the Georgia hills, is sincere when he 
 exclaims : 
 
 "The great constellations rose and set: 
 I knew them all, and worshipped all I knew ; 
 Yet, from their empire in the pregnant blue 
 Sweeping from planet-orbits to faint bars 
 Of nebulous cloud beyond the range of stars, 
 I turned to worship^ with a heart as true, 
 Long mosses drooping from the cypress-tree." 
 
342 Paul Hamilton Hayne 
 
 No study of Hayne's poetry would be complete 
 without some notice of his mastery of technique. 
 Perhaps such expressions as "starry sparkles of still 
 bliss," "purple-vestured mood," and "troublous 
 dreams" are rather affected; perhaps the claim that 
 his poetry is often diffuse is not without foundation ; 
 but, with the possible exception of such minor faults, 
 Hayne's work is highly excellent in its mere make-up. 
 From the earliest days of his literary career until his 
 last moment he was by far the severest critic of his 
 own writing, and although he always wrote in the 
 fever of inspiration, grasping the paper or the book 
 nearest at hand in order to record the fleeting 
 thought, he revised everything with such laborious, 
 almost painful care that no uncouth, straggling 
 expression left his hands. 
 
 Unlike Poe and Lanier, he attempts no new 
 theories of verse; but, accepting the well tried 
 methods, he shows genius, not in the novelty of his 
 mode of expression, but in the moving power of it. 
 That he could write a good ballad is proved by his 
 vigorous MacDonald's Raid: 
 
 "With this long, hissing sweep 
 I have smitten full many a foeman with sleep — 
 That forlorn, final sleep : God ! what memories cling 
 To those gallant old times when we fought 'gainst the King !" 
 
 That he could tell a good metrical tale is evidenced 
 in The Wife of Brittany or in the beautiful legend, 
 Aethra. But above all else he was a lyric poet. He 
 will longest claim our attention not as a describer of 
 beautiful scenes or teacher of philosophical formulas, 
 but as an expresser of sentiment. He is especially 
 happy in his sonnets, of which Maurice Thompson 
 has said that he could pick out twenty "the equal of 
 almost any in our language." Absolutely without 
 grossness, so delicate in his feelings and manners as 
 to be distinctly feminine in some traits, so true to 
 
Sidney Lanier 343 
 
 his ideals as to be the only American of the nineteenth 
 century to dedicate his life to poetry, he must in the 
 very nature of justice win a greater fame. For, as 
 Herman Grimm, the eminent German scholar, has 
 pointed out, "the circle which the poems embrace is 
 great, and the poet's spirit is everywhere at home." 
 
 XIII 
 
 In his early manhood Sidney Lanier wrote these 
 words in his note-book: "The prime inclination — 
 that is, natural bent (which I have 
 Sidney checked, though), — of my nature is 
 
 Lanier to music, and for that I have the great- 
 
 — est talent, indeed, not boasting, for 
 
 (1842=1881) God gave it me, I have an extraordi- 
 nary musical talent, and feel it within 
 me plainly that I could rise as high as any compo- 
 ser." His words are true. If he had not become a 
 poet he might have become an eminent musician. 
 The ability was inherited through many generations ; 
 for as far back as the time of James I we find one 
 of his ancestors "master of the king's music." In 
 his novel, Tiger-Lilies, he exclaims : "Since in all 
 holy worship, in all conditions of life, in all domestic, 
 social, religious, political, and lonely, individual 
 doings, in all passions, in all countries, earthly or 
 heavenly, in all stages of civilization of time or of 
 eternity; since, I say, in all these, music is always 
 present to utter the shallowest or the deepest thoughts 
 of man or spirit — let us cease to call music a fine 
 art, to class it with delicate pastry, cookery, and 
 confectionery, and to fear to make too much of it 
 lest it should make us sick." Music was to him the 
 world's highest gift. And, luckily for literature, he 
 turned this spirit of melody into poetry. 
 
344 Sidney Lanier 
 
 Lanier had in his nature the traits of two nations 
 noted for their strength and sentiment : the Hugue- 
 not and the Scotch. Born at Macon, Georgia, in 
 1842, he spent most of his boyhood amidst surround- 
 ings very conducive to that refinement and culture 
 which the slavery system made possible for the higher 
 classes of society. Very early in his childhood he 
 showed his remarkable aptitude for music, and 
 learned, almost entirely without instruction, to play 
 numerous instruments — one, the flute, so well that 
 in after years he was considered by many musicians 
 the best flute-player in America. At the age of 
 fifteen he entered Oglethorpe College, near Milledge- 
 ville, Georgia, an institution utterly unworthy of 
 the name "college." There he gained, through his 
 own investigation, considerable knowledge of the 
 later writers of English Literature. There, too, the 
 associations were pleasant in various ways. A class- 
 mate, describing the evenings spent together, says, 
 "We would read from some treasured volume, it 
 may have been Tennyson or Carlyle, or Christopher 
 North's Nodes Ambrosianae, or we would make 
 the hours vocal with music and song. . . . On 
 such occasions I have seen him walk up and down 
 the room and with his flute extemporize the sweet- 
 est music ever vouchsafed to mortal ear." 
 
 After his graduation he was given an instructor- 
 ship in the institution; but within six months the 
 Civil War began and soon he was marching with 
 a Georgia regiment toward the scene of conflict in 
 Virginia. He saw much hard service and was 
 several times offered promotion ; but because he did 
 not wish to be separated from his brother, he refused 
 all offices. During the last two years he was placed 
 in a signal corps — two years "passed in skirmishes, 
 racing to escape the enemy's gunboats, signaling 
 dispatches, serenading country beauties, poring over 
 
Sidney Lanier 345 
 
 chance books, and foraging for provender." But 
 even amidst such exciting scenes his studious habits 
 did not desert him. In the camp he practically- 
 mastered German, French, and Spanish, and prac- 
 tised most zealously on the flute. 
 
 It was in 1864 that the real misfortunes of his 
 life began. In that year, while on board a blockade 
 runner near Fort Fisher, he was captured and sent 
 to the prison at Point Lookout. The privations there 
 were great; but, fortunately, just before entering 
 the place, he had concealed his flute in his sleeve, 
 and music still consoled him. When, in 1865, he 
 stepped forth from confinement, his only earthly- 
 possessions were this instrument, a twenty-dollar 
 gold piece, and a suit of very ragged clothes. He 
 boldly began the homeward journey on foot, and at 
 length reached Macon so utterly worn out that he 
 fell ill, and his life was despaired of. After a visit 
 to Mobile Bay he was able to take a clerkship in 
 Montgomery, Alabama. But it was not until Sep- 
 tember, 1867, that he felt strong enough to under- 
 take heavy work. He took charge of a school at 
 Prattville, Alabama, and withirl the next year mar- 
 ried Miss Mary Day of Macon. The numerous 
 poems mentioning this woman are sufficient evidence 
 of the happiness of the union. In My Springs he 
 thus speaks of her: 
 
 "O Love, O -wife, thine eyes are they, 
 — My springs from out whose shining gray 
 Issue the sweet celestial streams 
 That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams." 
 
 It was in this same year that he published his first 
 book, Tiger-Lilies. This book, partially written 
 during the war and hastily finished afterwards, is 
 a tumultuous and exuberant prose-poem rather 
 unworthy of such a genius. And, yet, as Professor 
 
346 Sidney Lanier 
 
 Baskerville declares, "few first books could be 
 resurrected with so little drawback to the author's 
 reputation." 
 
 Now began the vain struggle with consumption. 
 In 1868 he gave up his school, returned to Macon, 
 and for four years attempted to practise law with 
 his father. But he steadily lost strength, and in 
 1872 he soug'ht relief in Texas. Growing no better, 
 Lanier resolved that henceforth every moment of 
 his remnant of life should be given to literature and 
 music. In 1873 ^^ secured the position of first flute 
 in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore, 
 and there the busiest and most fruitful years of his 
 life were spent. Lanier had been doubtful about 
 his being able to hold such a place among musicians ; 
 but the musical genius in him made up for the lack 
 of experience, and the position was his as long as 
 his health permitted him to hold it. Of this engage- 
 ment he afterwards wrote : "I was a raw player and 
 a provincial withal, without practise, and guiltless 
 of instruction — for I had never had a teacher. To 
 go under these circumstances among old professional 
 players, and assume a leading part in a large orches- 
 tra which was organized expressly to play the most 
 difficult works of the great masters was (now that 
 it is all over) a piece of temerity that I don't remem- 
 ber ever to have equaled before." But that his 
 temerity was warranted may be seen in the words 
 of Asger Hamerik, the director : "I will never for- 
 get the impression he made on me when he played 
 the flute concerto of Emil Hartman at a Peabody 
 Symphony concert in 1878, — his tall, handsome, 
 manly presence; his flute breathing noble sorrows, 
 noble joys; the orchestra softly responding. The 
 audience was spell-bound. Such distinction, such 
 refinement! He stood the master, the genius!" 
 
Sidney Lanier 347 
 
 But Lanier was giving far more attention to litera- 
 ture than to music. He took advantage of the 
 libraries and of the opportunities offered by Johns 
 Hopkins University, and made a most painstaking 
 study of Anglo-Saxon and of the writers of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He once said that 
 "the trouble with Poe was he did not know enough," 
 and, realizing that a great poet must have a large 
 fundamental knowledge in order to represent or 
 lead the thought of the age, he himself sought zeal- 
 ously for scholarship. Soon he began to teach pri- 
 vate classes, and at length, in 1879, secured a lecture- 
 ship in Johns Hopkins. 
 
 The battle for existence was now at its grimmest 
 stage. Amidst weakness and great pain, he did a 
 marvelous amount of work — three lecture courses 
 at girls' schools, two lecture courses at the Univer- 
 sity, frequent orchestra practises, and constant writ- 
 ing. Among his books of those years were The 
 English Novel, The Science of English Verse, his 
 Mabinogion for boys, his editions of Mallory, 
 Froissart, and Percy, his Boys' King Arthur, and 
 many poems. In 1876, he had been chosen, at the 
 suggestion of Bayard Taylor, to write the words 
 of the Centennial Cantata, and, although this verse 
 was not of high quality, it had brought him into 
 such prominence that all he wrote received wide 
 notice. Corn, one of the most thoughtful and 
 artistic poems ever produced in the English lan- 
 guage, had appeared in Lippincott's Magazine for 
 February, 1875. Within the next two or three years 
 he had written such noble works as The Song of 
 the Chattahoochee, The Symphony, Clover, The 
 Bee, and The Revenge of Hamish. 
 
 By 1880 his battle for life was an hourly struggle. 
 He lectured at Johns Hopkins after he was unable 
 to stand up, and often, indeed, his classes, awed by 
 
348 Sidney Lanier 
 
 this exhibition of supreme will-power, feared lest 
 the word then falling from his lips should be his last. 
 In such suffering, even when he was too weak to feed 
 himself, and with his fever at one hundred and four, 
 he wrote his greatest poem, Sunrise. The lines of 
 the dying man's song have rarely been equaled in 
 American Literature. 
 
 "In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain 
 Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. 
 The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep; 
 Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of 
 
 sweep 
 Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting. 
 Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting. 
 
 Came to the gates of sleep. 
 Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep 
 Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, 
 Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: 
 
 The gates of sleep fell a-trembling 
 Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter yes. 
 Shaken with happiness: 
 The gates of sleep stood wide." 
 
 In 1 88 1 he was taken to the mountains of North 
 Carolina, first near Asheville, and later at L3Tin, 
 where on September 7, the struggle was ended. His 
 body was sent back to Baltimore, and both at his 
 grave and in the halls of Johns Hopkins fitting 
 memorials have been erected. 
 
 "His song was only living aloud, 
 His work a singing with the hand." 
 
 A few words will suffice for Lanier's prose work. 
 The various editions of stories for boys — King 
 Arthur^ Mabinogion, Froissart, Percy, and others, 
 are exceedingly pleasing in style and are still popular 
 among young readers. His volume of lectures, The 
 English Novel, is a scholarly and valuable work, 
 attempting largely to show what personality has 
 done for literature. Because of the very nature of 
 this treatise he gives the highest place among Eng- 
 
Sidney Lanier 349 
 
 lish novelists to that woman of such remarkable 
 personality, George Eliot, who "shows man what 
 he may be in term of what he is." Music and Poetry, 
 Shakspere and His Predecessors, Retrospects and 
 Prospects, and his Letters — all collected after his 
 death — show the same earnestness, the same 
 endeavor to get at the truth of things, and the same 
 charity toward the world. 
 
 Of all his prose works his Science of English 
 Verse is, by far, the most valuable. Perhaps in this 
 effort to explain the principles of poetry, he has 
 allowed his love for music to carry him too far; 
 but there is "method in his madness." "In all cases," 
 he writes, "the appeal is to the ear; but the ear 
 should, for that purpose, be educated up to the high- 
 est possible plane of culture." His theory is that 
 time, and not accent, is the basis of poetic rhythm. 
 Every line of verse, according to this, divides itself 
 into measures equivalent to those in music, each 
 measure containing a predetermined number of time 
 units. Of course, by this scheme, verse becomes 
 a closer companion of music, and Lanier increased 
 the kinship by his lavish use of rhyme, assonance, 
 and alliteration. In poetry, just as in orchestra- 
 music, such a system allows great freedom of com- 
 position — a freedom that gains for his Sunrise and 
 The Marshes of Glynn magnificent symphonic 
 effects. Although the rhapsody, toward which form 
 his later poems tend, is by no means the highest 
 product of poetic creation, the undoubted melodious 
 results and the lofty and noble air of uninterrupted, 
 majestic movement, possible under such a system, 
 will do much toward securing for the theory at least 
 a modified acceptance. 
 
 Now, either by following this theory, or, as some 
 unbelievers would say, in spite of it, Lanier accom- 
 plished results in descriptive and musical effects not 
 
350 Sidney Lanier 
 
 often equaled in American Literature. Lowell 
 speaks of his "rare gift for the happy word." And 
 Lanier does indeed possess remarkable discernment 
 not only in descriptive phrases but in melodious ones 
 as well. For instance, there is real music in these 
 lines from one of his earlier poems, Betrayal: 
 
 "The sun has kissed the violet sea, 
 And burned the violet to a rose ; 
 O sea ! wouldst thou not better be 
 
 More violet still ? Who knows ? Who knows ? 
 Well hides the violet in the wood; 
 The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood, 
 And winter's ill is violet's £ood ; 
 But the bold glory of the rose. 
 It quickly comes and quickly goes — 
 Red petals whirling in white snows. 
 Ah me !" 
 
 And in his last works, such as Sunrise, the music is 
 but increased. Indeed, his endeavor to create melo- 
 dious effects is perhaps a little too evident at times, 
 and at such moments we find some lack of spon- 
 taneity. 
 
 In descriptive work his superiors are few. The 
 Marsh Hymns seem to catch the very spirit of that 
 far stretching landscape where sea and land meet 
 and mingle ; while such an effort as the Song of the 
 Chattahoochee is just as full of the hurrying, 
 impatient movement of the mountain stream : 
 
 "Out of the hills of Habersham, 
 Down the valleys of Hall, 
 I hurry amain to reach the plain. 
 Run the rapid and leap the fall. 
 Split at the rock and together again, 
 Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
 And flee from folly on every side, 
 With a lover's pain to attain the plain 
 Far from the hills of Habersham, 
 Far from the valleys of Hall." 
 
 At times Lanier gains magnificent chant-like expres- 
 sions, especially in his last days, after he had 
 
Sidney Lanier _ 351 
 
 definitely formulated his theory of verse. The lines 
 have not the regularity of ordinary poetry, and, yet, 
 note the lofty, epic efifect : 
 
 "The tide is at his highest height : 
 
 And it is night. 
 And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep 
 Roll in on the souls of men, 
 But who will reveal to our waking ken 
 The forms that swim and the shapes that creep 
 
 Under the waters of sleep ?" 
 
 Lanier was a firm believer not only in his call to 
 poetry, but in his theory of the science to which he 
 endeavored to reduce verse. His conception of the 
 poet's position is a lofty one, as shown in the often 
 praised lines of Corn: 
 
 "Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands 
 Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands, 
 
 And waves his blades upon the very edge 
 
 And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. 
 Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk, 
 
 Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime 
 
 That leads the vanward of his timid time. 
 
 And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme — 
 Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow 
 By double increment, above, below ; 
 
 Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee. 
 
 Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry 
 
 That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; 
 Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense. 
 
 By every god-like sense 
 Transmuted from the four wild elements.'' 
 
 Of course such a man would never abuse his literary 
 conscience. Even his book descriptive of Florida, 
 gotten up for a railroad company, is so high in artistic 
 conception that it has been called a "spiritualized 
 guide-book." In this poet the low levels of emotion 
 and interest find no welcome. 
 
 It has been mentioned that Lanier seems to dis- 
 close the very spirit of a subject in Nature, as, for 
 instance, in Song of the Chattahoochee and his 
 
350 Sidney Lanier 
 
 often equaled in American Literature. Lowell 
 speaks of his "rare gift for the happy word." And 
 Lanier does indeed possess remarkable discernment 
 not only in descriptive phrases but in melodious ones 
 as well. For instance, there is real music in these 
 lines from one of his earlier poems, Betrayal: 
 
 "The sun has kissed the violet sea, 
 
 And burned the violet to a rose ; 
 O sea ! virouldst thou not better be 
 
 More violet still? Who knows? Who knows? 
 Well hides the violet in the wood ; 
 The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood, 
 And winter's ill is violet's good ; 
 But the bold glory of the rose, 
 It quickly comes and quickly goes — 
 Red petals whirling in white snows, 
 Ah me !" 
 
 And in his last works, such as Sunrise, the music is 
 but increased. Indeed, his endeavor to create melo- 
 dious effects is perhaps a little too evident at times, 
 and at such moments we find some lack of spon- 
 taneity. 
 
 In descriptive work his superiors are few. The 
 Marsh Hymns seem to catch the very spirit of that 
 far stretching landscape where sea and land meet 
 and mingle ; while such an effort as the Song of the 
 Chattahoochee is just as full of the hurrying, 
 impatient movement of the mountain stream : 
 
 "Out of the hills of Habersham, 
 Down the valleys of Hall, 
 I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
 Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
 Split at the rock and together again. 
 Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
 And flee from folly on every side. 
 With a lover's pain to attain the plain 
 Far from the hills of Habersham, 
 Far from the valleys of Hall." 
 
 At times Lanier gains magnificent chant-like expres- 
 sions, especially in his last days, after he had 
 
Sidney Lanier _ 3 SI 
 
 definitely formulated his theory of verse. The lines 
 have not the regularity of ordinary poetry, and, yet, 
 note the lofty, epic effect : 
 
 "The tide is at his highest height : 
 
 And it is night. 
 And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep 
 Roll in on the souls of men, 
 But who will reveal to our waking ken 
 The forms that swim and the shapes that creep 
 
 Under the waters of sleep?" 
 
 Lanier was a firm believer not only in his call to 
 poetry, but in his theory of the science to which he 
 endeavored to reduce verse. His conception of the 
 poet's position is a lofty one, as shown in the often 
 praised lines of Corn: 
 
 "Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands 
 Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands, 
 
 And waves his blades upon the very edge 
 
 And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. 
 Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk, 
 
 Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime 
 
 That leads the vanward of his timid time. 
 
 And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme — 
 Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow 
 By double increment, above, below ; 
 
 Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee, 
 
 Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry 
 
 That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; 
 Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense. 
 
 By every god-like sense 
 Transmuted from the four wild elements." 
 
 Of course such a man would never abuse his literary 
 conscience. Even his book descriptive of Florida, 
 gotten up for a railroad company, is so high in artistic 
 conception that it has been called a "spiritualized 
 guide-book." In this poet the low levels of emotion 
 and interest find no welcome. 
 
 It has been mentioned that Lanier seems to dis- 
 close the very spirit of a subject in Nature, as, for 
 instance, in Song of the Chattahoochee and his 
 
352 Sidney Lanier 
 
 Hymns of the Marshes. Nature is to him a most 
 lovable but a profoundly mysterious and wonder- 
 ful creation. At times, as in the opening lines of 
 Com, he finds a rapture in the various aspects of 
 natural things: 
 
 "Today the woods are trembling through and through 
 With shimmering forms, and flash before my view. 
 Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue, 
 
 The leaves that wave against my cheek caress 
 Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express 
 
 A subtlety of mighty tenderness ; 
 The copse-depths into little noises start. 
 That sound anon like beatings of a heart, 
 Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart." 
 
 But, then, beyond all this beauty, this appeal to the 
 senses is the strange, untold meaning of it all — the 
 mystery beneath its simplicity that Lanier longs to 
 pierce. In The Marshes of Glynn, he exclaims, 
 
 "Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing withholding 
 
 and free — 
 Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the 
 
 sea! 
 Tolerant planes, that suffer the sea and the rains and the 
 
 sun. 
 Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily 
 
 won 
 God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain. 
 And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain." 
 
 Here, indeed, is the same realization of Nature's 
 fundamental character, that, uncoupled with eccen- 
 tricity, might have made Walt Whitman a world- 
 poet. In fact, as time passes, critics will more and 
 more acknowledge that some of this work, especially 
 The Hymns of the Marshes, stands among the great- 
 est literary productions of modern times. By means 
 of his powerful imagination, he symbolizes or, 
 rather, personifies the mightier phases of Nature, 
 and the river and the marsh become living, moving, 
 thinking creatures. The Marshes of Glynn again 
 
Sidney Lanier 353 
 
 serve as an admirable example ; for he gives to this 
 vast wilderness a calm, almost intellectual dignity; 
 and, yet, beneath this we seem to see in the watery 
 waste a great, creeping, serpent-like being, conscious 
 of its awful strength. Here, as Hamilton Wright 
 Mabie has said, is "the large elemental movement of 
 imagination, ... a movement which has a 
 touch of tidal depth and reach in it, a hint of cosmical 
 power and meaning." 
 
 But, relieving his words from any trace of terror, 
 comes the tenderness of his love for Nature's things. 
 What a happy expression is A Ballad of Trees and 
 the Master: 
 
 "Into the woods my Master went, 
 Clean forspent, forspent. 
 Into the woods my Master came, 
 Forspent with love and shame. 
 But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him; 
 The thorn-tree had a mind to Him, 
 When into the woods He came. 
 
 "Out of the woods my Master went, 
 And he was well content. 
 Out of the woods my Master came, 
 Content with death and shame. 
 When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
 From under the trees they drew Him last : 
 'Twas on a tree they slew Him — last 
 When out of the woods He came." 
 
 And again, what a confidence in Nature is shown 
 in these words to the sun, in Sunrise! 
 
 "Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas 
 
 Of traffic shall hide thee, 
 Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories 
 
 Hide thee, 
 Never the reek of the time's fen-politics 
 
 Hide thee, 
 And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge 
 
 abide thee, 
 And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee, 
 Labor, at leisure, in art, — till yonder beside thee 
 
 My soul shall float, friend Sun, 
 
 The day being done." 
 
354 Sidney Lanier 
 
 Well has Thomas Wentworth Higginson declared 
 that "in his description of sunrise ... he puts 
 . . . such a wealth of outdoor observation as 
 makes even Thoreau seem thin and arid." 
 
 Artist as he is, Lanier is not a whole-souled 
 believer in art for art's sake. Moral purpose is 
 present from first to last. By no means a follower 
 of the fleshly school of poets, he never makes realism 
 a pretext for debauchery, and "the beauty of holi- 
 ness" — a favorite expression of his — is beauty of a 
 very real sort in his verse. One of his lectures 
 delivered at Johns Hopkins contains this thought: 
 "In a word, unless you are suffused with truth, wis- 
 dom, goodness, and love, abandon the hope that the 
 ages will accept you as an artist." We have seen 
 his conception of the poets' duty, as shown in Corn; 
 again, in The Bee, he exclaims, 
 
 "Wilt ask, what profit e'er a poet brings ? 
 He beareth starry stuff about his wings 
 To pollen thee and sting thee fertile." 
 
 "Impressed but not overwhelmed by the sad and 
 tragic conditions of his life," he saw in Nature seri- 
 ous applications for his own existence and for the 
 existence of his fellow-men. Note the closing lines 
 of Song of the Chattahoochee: 
 
 "But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 
 And oh, not the valleys of Hall, 
 Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain, 
 
 For downward the voices of duty call — 
 Downward to toil and be mixed with the main. 
 The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, 
 And a thousand meadows mortally yearn. 
 And the final main from beyond the plain 
 Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 
 And calls through the valleys of Hall." 
 
 In The Symphony, too, is the same strongly marked 
 moral purpose. We are overcome by our greed, he 
 declares : 
 
Sidney Lanier 355 
 
 "We weave in the mills and weave in the kilns, 
 We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, 
 And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills. 
 To relieve, O God, what manner of ills?" 
 
 And, again, in the same poem : 
 
 "But who said once in the lordly tone, 
 Man shall not live by bread alone. 
 But all that cometh from the throne? 
 
 Hath God said so? 
 
 But Trade saith No." 
 
 It is his sincere belief that 
 
 "The time needs heart — 'tis tired of head." 
 
 What philosophy Lanier might have expressed 
 we can only conjecture. He had not reached his 
 highest possibilities when death came. But what 
 he has left is noble even if somewhat fragmentary. 
 The amount of his poetry is not great; but there 
 remains, to use the words of Mme. Blanc, "a diamond 
 shower of beautiful verses, of images grandiose and 
 gracious, of happy expressions which compose the 
 most exquisite of anthologies." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE NEW SOUTH 
 
 (1875-1905) 
 
 It was in December, 1886, that Henry Grady said 
 in his address before the New England Club : "The 
 old South rested everything on slavery and agri- 
 culture, unconscious that these could neither give 
 nor maintain healthy growth. The new South pre- 
 sents a perfect democracy, the oligarchs leading in 
 the popular movement — a social system compact and 
 closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but 
 stronger at the core — a hundred farms for every 
 plantation, fifty houses for every palace — and a 
 diversified industry that meets the complex needs of 
 this complex age. 
 
 "The new South is enamored of her new work. 
 Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. 
 The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. 
 She is thrilling with the consciousness of growing 
 power and prosperity. As she stands upright, fuU- 
 statured and equal among the people of the earth, 
 breathing the keen air and looking out upon the 
 expanded horizon, she understands that her emanci- 
 pation came because through the inscrutable wisdom 
 of God, her honest purpose was crossed, and her 
 brave armies were beaten." 
 
 In the opening years of the twentieth century these 
 words are even nearer exact truth than in the days 
 when the famous orator said them. The talk of an 
 "oppressed South" has now become an unavailing 
 
358 The New South 
 
 weapon, even in the hands of the unscrupulous poli- 
 tician, and in its place has come a realization of the 
 wonderful resources, advantages, and undoubted 
 future greatness of the section. True, there are vast 
 areas still silent in their primeval wildness. Equally- 
 true is the fact that slovenly methods of cultivation 
 have turned portions into worse than wilderness. 
 There has been too little variety, too great a reliance 
 upon the one product, cotton. In consequence, the 
 whole section has had brief periods of prosperity and 
 long ones of depressing poverty. But with the 
 younger generation of the nineteenth century there 
 came a desire for broader activities ; enormous min- 
 eral deposits have been opened ; factories have sprung 
 up; and old and sleepy ante-bellum towns have 
 become flourishing manufacturing centers. The 
 days of the "Reconstruction" having been passed, 
 and the "carpet-bagger" having reaped his harvest 
 and departed, the South has awakened to a sense of 
 its possibilities. 
 
 With this younger generation came a genuine 
 revival in literary work. True, no great magazines 
 nor publishing houses came into existence; but a 
 literature more purely Southern perhaps than much 
 written before the war now appeared. For now, 
 not only did an astonishingly large number of writers 
 begin their work, but, also, what was of greater sig- 
 nificance, there appeared a local flavor, — a tone so 
 positive, so persistent, and, above all, so entirely new 
 that American Literature of the last quarter of the 
 nineteenth century was immeasurably afifected by it. 
 Says Judge A. W. Tourgee, writing in The Forum 
 of 1888: "A foreigner studying our current litera- 
 ture, without knowledge of our history, and judging 
 our civilization by our fiction, would undoubtedly 
 conclude that the South was the seat of intellectual 
 empire in America." A glance at the magazines of 
 
The New South 359 
 
 the day or at the recent book-lists of American pub- 
 lishing-houses will substantiate such a statement. 
 
 The main literary trouble with the South of today 
 lies in the fact that it has no one great literary and 
 publishing center. The East has long had such a 
 point in New York ; the central West is fast gaining 
 one in Chicago; while in the extreme West San 
 Francisco bids fair to become such a center. But 
 in the South such a place does not as yet exist. 
 Before the war Charleston and Richmond were 
 meccas for literary aspirants; but after the civil 
 strife their prestige was gone, and since then the 
 literary genius of the Southern States has, for the 
 most part, sought New York as the market-place for 
 its wares. Some have argued that judging by other 
 countries, America will have but one great center of 
 letters; that England has but one, London; that 
 Germany finds Leipzig sufficient; that France looks 
 to Paris for her books. But it should be remembered 
 that almost any of the European countries could be 
 enclosed within the boundaries of one of the South- 
 em States. America, in its vastness, may well expect 
 more than one great literary metropolis. But such 
 a market is not absolutely necessary for the growth 
 of a Southern Literature. It would, indeed, be help- 
 ful; but that a writing intrinsically Southern is 
 flourishing without it is self-evident. 
 
 Now, with this general change from agriculture 
 to manufacturing and commercialism, there came in 
 the South, as in all other parts of the country, a 
 dropping away from the old ideals of "professions." 
 Especially is this true of law, or, rather, its ever 
 present companion in the Southern States — ^politics. 
 The days of the orator-statesman seem to have 
 
360 Henry Watterson 
 
 passed forever, and today this section has no men 
 of the Calhoun or Clay type. Here and there is yet 
 a figure important because of power in state-craft; 
 but even these men are not found delivering eloquent 
 orations in legislative halls. Rather through the 
 silent but not less powerful voice of the newspaper, 
 they still influence the people. 
 
 Among such leaders the names of two come most 
 quickly to mind : Henry Watterson (1840- ) 
 
 and Henry Woodfin Grady (1851- 
 
 Henry 1889). The former was born at 
 
 Watterson Washington, D. C, and while still a 
 
 — boy became a reporter in that city. 
 
 (1840= ) He served in the Confederate army 
 
 throughout the Civil War, and shortly 
 after its close became editor of the Louisville, Ken- 
 tucky, Courier. George D. Prentice, his predecessor, 
 had lifted this paper to an exceedingly high plane, 
 and when, in 1868, it became the Courier- Journal, 
 with Watterson as editor, it was soon looked upon 
 as the most important daily in the South. With the 
 exception of a year (1876- 1877) spent in Congress, 
 he has made the editing of this paper the chief work 
 of his life. The result has been that his editorial 
 page is a force in moulding public opinion, while its 
 fairness of tone, its general high moral level, and its 
 refusal to participate in demagogy of any brand have 
 gained for it the respect of men of all parties. 
 
 Watterson is well fitted for his position as a public 
 man. With a thorough, personal knowledge of party 
 history during the latter half of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, with a "sticking" manner of saying things, in 
 charge of a paper established on a firm basis by such 
 a writer as George D. Prentice, and possessing no 
 mean gifts as an orator, he has been endowed in such 
 a way as to place him at all times prominently before 
 the American public. Perhaps it is because the man 
 
Henry Grady 361 
 
 retains so little of sectional bitterness that he has 
 received the attention of both South and North. His 
 words in a speech before the National Bankers' Con- 
 vention (Louisville, 1883) are indicative of this 
 trait : 
 
 "The South ! It is no problem at all. I thank God 
 that at last we can say with tnith, it is simply a 
 geographic expression. The whole story of the 
 South may be summed up in a sentence : She was 
 rich, and she lost her riches; she was poor and in 
 bondage; she was set free, and she had to go to 
 work ; she went to work, and she is richer than ever 
 before. You see it was a ground-hog case. The 
 soil was here, the climate was here, but along with 
 these was a curse, the curse of slavery. God passed 
 the rod across the land and smote the people. Then, 
 in His goodness and mercy, He waved the wand of 
 enchantment, and lo, like a flower, His blessing burst 
 forth. Indeed, may the South say, as in the experi- 
 ence of men it is rare for any to say with perfect 
 sincerity : 
 
 'Sweet are the uses of adversity.' " 
 
 II 
 
 Doubtless the most eloquent Southerner of the 
 last quarter of the nineteenth century was Henry 
 
 Grady (1851-1889). The true great- 
 Henry ness of this remarkable man is just 
 Grady beginning to be appreciated. He was 
 — • born at Athens, Georgia, where he 
 (1851=1889) spent most of his boyhood and 
 
 received his early education. Not 
 noted at all for over-zealous attention to his school- 
 work, he nevertheless was an extensive reader and, 
 even at this early age, a natural leader of his com- 
 panions. His father was killed in the Civil War; 
 
362 Henry Grady 
 
 but his mother, by dint of much economy, managed 
 to aid him in attending the University of Georgia, 
 where he graduated in 1868. Here, again, he was 
 not an intense student in the required studies, and 
 yet his wide reading, especially in history and fiction, 
 and his powers as an orator ranked him as a young 
 man of great promise. 
 
 After a course at the University of Virginia, he 
 took up newspaper work in Georgia and in the course 
 of time became editor of the Rome Courier. It was 
 just at this time that the strong manhood of Grady 
 asserted itself. One of his editorials against a city 
 "ring" having been denied publication by the pro- 
 prietor of the paper, he promptly resigned, bought 
 the two remaining journals of the town, and next 
 morning published the rousing editorial in his own 
 sheet. Through erratic management his paper failed, 
 and Grady went to Atlanta and became one of the 
 founders of the Atlanta Herald. In his attempts 
 to make this the leading paper of the South, he 
 spared no expense, even chartering a special engine 
 to carry one thousand papers one hundred miles. But 
 in time a mortgage on the property was foreclosed, 
 and Grady found himself penniless. 
 
 He borrowed fifty dollars, gave twenty dollars 
 to his wife, and hastened to New York to try his 
 fortune. Having applied at the Herald office, he 
 was asked by the managing editor if he knew any- 
 thing about politics. "I replied," writes Grady, 
 "that I knew very little about anything else." He 
 then wrote a splendid article on Southern constitu- 
 tional conventions and at once became a member of 
 the Herald staff. In 1880 he became managing 
 editor of The Atlanta Constitution, and from that 
 day he was a positive leader in the South. "He was 
 almost an absolute dictator in Georgia politics. No 
 man cared to stand for election to any place, high 
 
Henry Grady 363 
 
 or low, unless he felt Grady was with him." And 
 yet he never sought office for himself, and he refused 
 many oflfers. He first attracted attention through- 
 out the whole nation by his address. The Nezv South, 
 delivered at the banquet of the New England Society 
 in December, 1886. This was followed by other 
 masterly efforts, especially the widely read address 
 before the Boston Merchants Association in Decem- 
 ber, 1889 ; and he became known as one of the great- 
 est of American orators. It was at this time that 
 death came upon him. Brought home from Boston, 
 with a severe attack of pneumonia, he lingered but a 
 few days, and died on December 23, 1889. 
 
 The memory of an orator, actor, or editor lives 
 largely through tradition. The effective words of 
 Grady's editorial page served their purpose and 
 passed into forgetfulness ; but the results will not 
 die. The city of Atlanta will long remember his 
 unremitting efforts for the fairs of 1880, 1886, and 
 1888. The Y. M. C. A. building, the Confederate 
 Soldiers' Home, and various educational and indus- 
 trial institutions of the city are conspicuous monu- 
 ments to his energy. His work for the rural South 
 was indeed fruitful. His vision of the possibilities 
 of the section was beneficial both industrially and 
 spiritually. But, after all, it is as an interpreter 
 between the North and the South that he is deserving 
 of greatest gratitude. 
 
 He was well fitted for such a task. He seemed 
 absolutely without prejudice. Of the race question 
 he said in an address at Dallas, Texas, in 1887 : 
 
 "What of the negro? This of him. I want no 
 better friend than the black boy who was raised by 
 my side, and who is now trudging patiently with 
 down-cast eyes and shambling figure through his 
 lowly way in life. I want no sweeter music than the 
 'crooning' of my old 'mammy' now dead and gone 
 
364 Henry Grady 
 
 to rest, as I heard it when she held me in her loving 
 arms, and, bending her old black face above me, 
 stole the cares from my brain and led me smiling 
 into sleep. . . . 
 
 "History has no parallel to the faith kept by the 
 negro in the South during the war. Often five hun- 
 dred negroes to a single white man, and yet through 
 these dusky throngs the women and children walked 
 in safety, and the unprotected homes rested in peace. 
 . . . Everywhere humble and kindly; the body- 
 guard of the helpless; the rough companion of the 
 little ones ; the observant friend ; the silent sentry in 
 his lowly cabin; the shrewd counselor.. ... A 
 thousand torches would have disbanded every South- 
 ern army, but not one was lighted." 
 
 But Grady was stoutly for his section; and in 
 his addresses both North and South he stated what 
 he saw to be the truth, fearless of all criticism. His 
 picture of the Confederate soldier returning home 
 shows how deeply he felt for his home-land : 
 
 "Let me picture to you the foot-sore Confederate 
 soldier, as buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the 
 parole which was to bear testimony to his children 
 of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face south- 
 ward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of 
 him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled 
 by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, 
 he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his com- 
 rades in silence, and, lifting his tear-stained and 
 pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot 
 old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow, 
 and begins the slow and painful journey. 
 
 "What does he find — let me ask you who went to 
 your homes eager to find in the welcome you had 
 justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice — 
 what does he find when, having followed the battle- 
 stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading 
 
Poetry 365 
 
 death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the 
 home he left so prosperous and beautiful? He finds 
 his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves 
 free, his stock killed, his bams empty, his trade 
 destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, 
 feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his comrades 
 slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his 
 shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions 
 are gone." 
 
 Seeing the strength and weakness of both sides of 
 the great division, Grady sought with whole-hearted 
 zeal to reunite the broken bonds. "He taught that 
 to know and to be are greater things than to get and 
 to have." He fulfills the highest ideal of a patriot ; 
 one who does more for his fellow-men than he does 
 for himself. 
 
 POETRY 
 
 When we turn to the verse-writers of this period 
 we find a legion of minor poets, but no great ones. 
 The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw a 
 scientific awakening and not a poetical one. Men 
 perhaps found less time for the enjoyment of metre 
 and rhyme, and the poets, instead of singing about 
 the greater subjects of the day drifted away into 
 remote regions of thought and sentiment, and to 
 many readers seemed without sympathy and entirely 
 out of touch with the struggles about them. In the 
 South, as elsewhere, we find dainty expressions of 
 dainty sentiments ; but the best intellect of the period 
 has so far expressed itself in fiction, if in literature 
 at all, or else in scientific and industrial activities. 
 
 Of these many verse-writers a rather small group 
 have shown more than average talent. Among such 
 persons may be mentioned John Henry Boner 
 
368 Irwin Russell 
 
 went to New Orleans. There, in extreme poverty 
 and distress, he battled manfully for health and for 
 a little longer time to write. The weakened frame 
 could not long continue the struggle, and death came 
 in December, 1879. 
 
 Irwin Russell seems to gain the very spirit of the 
 old-time negro. The quaint humor, the shrewd 
 philosophy, the child-like willingness to believe, the 
 emotional, religious nature, and, above all, the delight 
 in superstition and folk-lore — all these the young 
 poet portrays without affectation. A few lines from 
 Christmas-Night in the Quarters will show this 
 
 talent : 
 
 "How many things they say and do 
 That never would occur to you, 
 See Brudder Brown — whose saving grace 
 Would sanctify a quarter-race — 
 Out on the crowded floor advance, 
 To 'beg a blessin' on dis dance.' 
 
 " 'O Mahsr ! let dis gath'rin' fin' a blessin' in yo' sight ! 
 Don't judge us hard fur what we does — you know it's 
 
 Christmas night; 
 An' all de balance ob de yeah we does as right's we kin. 
 Ef dancin's wrong, O Mahsr ! let de time excuse de sin ! 
 
 " 'We labors in de vineya'd wukin' hard an' wukin' true ; 
 Now shorely you won't notus, if we eats a grape or two, 
 And takes a leetle holiday, — a leetle restin' spell, — 
 Bekase, nex' week, we'll start in fresh an' labor twicet ;is 
 well.' " 
 
 There are many opponents of dialect writing, and 
 doubtless much that is in this form would be stronger 
 and more effective in cultured English ; "but," to use 
 the words of Dr. C. A. Smith, "when a writer por- 
 trays and then perpetuates the peculiar life of a people 
 numbering four million, he is to that extent an his- 
 torian; and Irwin Russell's example in this respect 
 meant a complete change of front in Southern Litera- 
 ture." This bold innovation on the part of the 
 young poet did more than furnish amusement and 
 novelty for the mgraent- jt taught Southern writers 
 
Samuel Minturn Peck 369 
 
 that their "acres of diamonds" were at home. That 
 this is true may be seen in the appreciation of such 
 writers as Joel Chandler Harris, who speaks highly 
 of the poet's character studies, and Thomas Nelson 
 Page, who says, "It was the light of his genius 
 shining through his dialect poems — first of dialect 
 poems and still first — that led my feet in the direc- 
 tion I have since tried to follow." In the twenty- 
 six years of his life, he wrote with deeper power 
 than he himself realized; for from his day dates a 
 new phase of literature. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In Samuel Minturn Peck ( 1854- ) we find 
 
 a very graceful writer of vers de societe and, yet, at 
 
 times a poet of some depth. Born 
 
 Samuel near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he was 
 
 Minturn educated in the State University at 
 
 Peck that place, and, with the exception 
 
 — of a few years spent in study of 
 
 (1854= ) medicine at New York, he has always 
 
 lived in or near that city. He has 
 
 been successful both in writing and in farming, and 
 
 thus has had ample opportunity to test the kind of 
 
 life for which many poets have longed. His volume 
 
 of verse, Cap and Bells (1886), has had a wide 
 
 reading, while today his contributions are welcomed 
 
 by many magazines. 
 
 Perhaps his best known poems are / Wonder What 
 Maud Will Say and A Knot of Blue, a little lyric 
 that has been set to music by no less than twelve 
 composers. But other poems of his equally as good 
 might be given. Gracefulness is the notable trait 
 in all this work ; but with this there sometimes goes 
 a very happy humor. For instance, when the female 
 
370 Frank Lebby Stanton 
 
 doctor comes to town, he declares, in Bessie Brown, 
 M.D., 
 
 "Like all the rest, I too grew ill ; 
 
 My aching heart there was no quelling, 
 I tremble at my doctor's bill, — 
 
 And lo! the items still are swelling. 
 The drugs I've drunk you'd weep to hear! 
 They've quite enriched the fair concocter, 
 And I'm a ruined man, I fear, 
 Unless — I wed the Doctor !" 
 
 Some would say, perhaps, that this lighter form of 
 poetry soon perishes, that as soon as it has delighted 
 the hour its work is done. This would seem to be 
 true ; yet Oliver Wendell Holmes' poetry is still popu- 
 lar and in England the fanciful rhymes of Austin 
 Dodson are read and re-read with ever-increasing 
 admiration. Samuel Minturn Peck has written some 
 lines that many would not wish American Literature 
 to lose. 
 
 IV 
 
 A study of American Literature would seem to 
 show that a newspaper office is a splendid school for 
 
 young writers. Many indeed are the 
 Frank novelists and poets who learned in 
 
 Lebby such a place their earliest lessons in 
 
 Stanton literature-making. In Frank Lebby 
 
 — Stanton we find a well-known 
 
 (1859= ) example — a man who gained much of 
 
 his education in front of a printing 
 press and among wide-awake, practical men. He 
 was born at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1859, 
 early removed to Savannah, and before his ninth 
 birthday was working as a farmhand. Later he 
 learned the printer's trade, and, passing from one 
 paper to another, at length secured a position on the 
 Rome, Georgia, Tribune. From this place he went 
 
Madison Cawein 371 
 
 to The Atlanta Constitution, to which he contributes 
 a column daily. 
 
 Much of Stanton's work is good; much of it is 
 poor. The very position that he holds compels such 
 a result. Forced to contribute his daily amount of 
 writing, and, at the same time, contributing to 
 several other newspapers and magazines, he fre- 
 quently "grinds out" rhymed lines and short sketches 
 utterly unworthy of him. But that he can do good 
 work is evidenced by his volume. Songs of a Day, — 
 a book which has sold into several editions. In these 
 verses, as in some that have appeared since, there 
 is unaffected sentiment mingled with bits of shrewd 
 wisdom, and all expressed in rather musical lan- 
 guage. The chief strength of the man seems to lie in 
 the fact that his songs, coming from his own heart, 
 reach the hearts of his readers. And, therefore, 
 although he may never write great works, he will at 
 least bring poetry into the homes of the common 
 people^ and thus prepare them for a conception of 
 that higher form of verse which otherwise they might 
 never appreciate. 
 
 V 
 
 Madison Cawein was born at Louisville, Ken- 
 tucky, and, after receiving a public-school educa- 
 tion in that city, became an accountant 
 Madison in a business house. But commercial- 
 
 Cawein ism has by no means stunted the 
 
 — poetic soul of the man; for he has 
 
 (1865- ) written a large amount of verse for 
 a man of his age. Among his best 
 known volumes are Triumph of Music, Lyrics and 
 Idylls, and Red Leaves and Roses, but these are 
 only a few from the many. We find in him a poet 
 capable of much vivacity and fancy, and with it all 
 
372 Madison Cawein 
 
 a very melodious manner of expression. A lover of 
 Nature, he shows no mean power of description 
 when speaking of these things that he admires and 
 loves. For an instance of this, a stanza from The 
 Whippoorwill may be given : 
 
 "Above long woodland ways that led 
 To dells the stealthy twilights tread 
 The west was hot geranium-red ; 
 
 And still, and still, 
 Along old lanes, the locusts sow 
 With clustered curls the May-times know. 
 Out of the crimson afterglow, 
 We heard the homeward cattle low, 
 And then the far-off, far-off woe 
 
 Of 'whippoorwill I' of 'whippoorwill !' " 
 
 But more promising, perhaps, than this ability are 
 the seriousness and depth of his works. His 
 Disenchantment of Death would not be unworthy 
 of poets of far greater fame. Here is something of 
 Wordsworth's philosophy, but expressed in much 
 more dramatic terms than the English poet used : 
 
 "Hush ! She is dead ! Tread gently as the light 
 Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold. 
 
 Look ! — In death's ermine pomp of awful white. 
 Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold ! 
 
 Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might — 
 Death ! and how death hath made it vastly old. 
 
 "Old earth she is now : energy of birth 
 
 Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly; 
 The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth ; 
 
 Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be, 
 Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth, 
 For Fairylands beyond some silent sea." 
 
 In Cawein, as in the others just now discussed, we 
 see the possibilities of great poetry. Imagination, 
 thought, understanding of certain phases of life, and 
 technical ability are here ; but the spirit of the times 
 somewhat hampers lofty poetic flights. Lengthy 
 poems are not encouraged by the periodicals. The 
 
Fiction 373 
 
 stanzas, exceedingly few in number, must give but 
 some minutest aspect of a great emotion or thought. 
 This no doubt leads to conciseness, and some rare 
 gems have resulted; the broadness of poetry, how- 
 ever, is threatened. 
 
 How many writers of excellent verse we have 
 left unnoticed, each reader must judge for himself. 
 A long list of such minor poets comes to mind — 
 John Banister Tabb (1845- )> a- writer of 
 beautiful lyrics; George Herbert Sass (1845- 
 
 ), whose In A King-Cambyses Vein has been 
 greatly admired; Robert Burns Wilson (1850- 
 
 ), author of Life and Love; William Hayne 
 (1856- ), son of Paul Hamilton Hayne, and 
 author of Sylvan Lyrics; Lizette Woodworth 
 Reese (186 - ), author of A Branch of May; 
 Danske Dandridge (1859- ), author of Joy 
 and Other Poems; Benjamin Sledd (1864- ), 
 author of The Watchers of the Hearth; Robert 
 LovEMAN (1864- ), author of Songs from a 
 Georgia Garden and several other volumes. These 
 names, and many others, give most pleasing evi- 
 dence against the pessimistic view that the inter- 
 est in poetry is practically gone. The South, with 
 its luxuriant Nature, its romantic traditions, its 
 heroic yet sorrowful history, its recent discovery of 
 its own vast latent powers, should indeed do much 
 in the poetical revival that the fulness of time will 
 surely give to America. 
 
 FICTION 
 
 Let us close this survey of Southern Literature 
 with a study of the fiction writers who have devel- 
 oped under the new social conditions. Their number 
 is legion, — so great indeed that many critics have 
 
374 Fiction 
 
 noted the fact that the South and the Central West 
 are furnishing by far the greater part of the da/s 
 reading. It is but natural that this should be the 
 case. The South has a population almost wholly 
 American. With the exception of the French in 
 Louisiana, the people are of the same English and 
 Scotch-Irish character as the early Virginia settlers. 
 Therefore they have a certain well-defined manner 
 of thinking and of feeling that has not been weakened 
 by either the effeteness of Southern Europeans, the 
 nihilistic tendencies of Slavonic immigrants, or the 
 mercenary grasp of Northern Europeans. The 
 people of this section may be narrow in some 
 respects; but their very narrowness gives them 
 strength and originality. 
 
 The tone of Southern fiction at the opening of the 
 new century is fresh. There are no signs of over- 
 refinement, of poverty of emotions, or weariness of 
 life. A field bountiful in possibilities is being 
 worked, and the results are not failing of recognition. 
 That unique character, the American negro, so 
 undeveloped in intellect, yet so rich in emotions; 
 the ante-bellum gentleman, with his now antiquated 
 conceptions of things in general; the sudden indus- 
 trial changes; the wonderful scenery; the strange 
 mingling of the new and the old ; and, above all, the 
 deeply pathetic history of the section — ^these and 
 many other themes, are at last gaining recognition 
 as literary material of most unusual richness. 
 
Francis Hopkinson Smith 375 
 
 I 
 
 One of the earliest of these writers belonging more 
 especially to the New South is Francis Hopkinson 
 Smith (1838- ). Born at Balti- 
 Francis more, he was early left in that city to 
 
 Hopkinson work out his destiny by "the sweat of 
 Smith his brow." His opportunities for 
 
 — education were exceedingly meagre, 
 
 (1838- ) but during the toilsome years of his 
 youth, while working in various 
 Southern cities, he spent his evenings in gaining 
 knowledge. He very early felt the artistic prompt- 
 ings within himself, and, as time passed, he took up 
 the study of drawing and painting. Then followed 
 a course in civil engineering, and then another pur- 
 suit and another, until today he is noted nearly as 
 much by his work as an engineer, a light-house 
 builder, a painter, and a lecturer as by his writings. 
 In fact, literature-making seems to be almost a pas- 
 time with him, and the wonder of it is that among 
 his manifold activities he finds any time whatever 
 for such a pursuit. 
 
 In the course of his mechanical and artistic work 
 he has traveled widely, with the result that some of 
 his best known writings are descriptive of other 
 lands. Such, for instance, are Well-Worn Roads of 
 Spain, Holland and Italy, and A White Umbrella 
 in Mexico — ^books that charm not only by their 
 power of description but by their curious anecdotes, 
 their delicate humor, and the strange and often- 
 times ridiculous situations in which their charac- 
 ters are placed. Few indeed are the American writers 
 superior to him in combined lightness and sureness 
 of touch and in the deftness with which scenes are 
 placed vividly before the reader. 
 
 But, undoubtedly, Smith will be remembered long- 
 est by his story of Southern life, Colonel Carter of 
 
376 George Washington Cable 
 
 Cartersville. A Book of the Tile Club, A Gentle- 
 man Vagabond, and Tom Grogan are filled with a 
 delightful humor and no small insight into things 
 of this existence; but neither these nor the later 
 volume, Colonel Carter's Christmas, have quite the 
 same charm as Colonel Carter of Cartersville. Here 
 are displayed with most sympathetic touches the 
 lovableness and the easily forgiven weaknesses of 
 the ante-bellum gentleman of the South. This book, 
 like many of Smith's short stories, has a distinctly 
 Southern flavor. He is skillful in his use of negro 
 dialect, and, having seen the negro in many sections 
 and under many different conditions, he uses the 
 character to great advantage. A mixture of quaint 
 humor and tender sentiment are ever present, and, 
 with it all, a certain warmth and an impression that 
 the writer, too, is thoroughly enjoying the tale. Nor 
 is there ever absent the artist's quick eye for situa- 
 tions, scenes, and colors. Seldom dealing with the 
 harsher and sadder phases of life, he prefers, rather, 
 the quaint and eccentric, those things that by the 
 very lovableness of their weaknesses charm us all. 
 Few, indeed, are the American writers who have 
 dealt with life from so many standpoints, both practi- 
 cal and artistic, as has this versatile man. 
 
 II 
 
 This Dame Popularity — what a deceitful mistress 
 she is ! With what surprising suddenness she comes, 
 
 and with what shocking precipitation 
 George she vanishes ! A well known instance 
 
 Washington — in certain parts of the South, 
 Cable at least — is George Washington 
 
 — Cable (1844- ). For some years 
 
 (1844- ) now his name has scarcely been spoken 
 
 in the far South, without words of 
 condemnation; and, although in these first years of 
 
George Washington Cable 377 
 
 the new century the bitterness is abating, there is 
 still enough of it to make Mr. Cable feel a little ill- 
 at-ease in his own land. For in spite of the fact that 
 this author deals rather unmercifully with the now 
 out-worn slavery question and the now fast-growing 
 negro question, he is a native Southerner "for several 
 generations back." 
 
 He was born at New Orleans, of rather wealthy 
 and influential parents ; but early in the boy's child- 
 hood his father failed in business, and ten years 
 later (1859) died, leaving the family with extremely 
 limited means. George, then fourteen, was com- 
 pelled to leave school and take a clerkship in a mer- 
 cantile house. Then came the Civil War, and Cable, 
 too young to enter during the first years, enlisted in 
 a Mississippi regiment in 1863. After the return 
 of peace he studied civil engineering and for some 
 time had been engaged in surveying when an attack 
 of malarial fever fortunately stopped all labor. 
 "Fortunately" one may say, because he thus took 
 time to study the life about him and to see its literary 
 possibilities. 
 
 He began to contribute to the New Orleans Pica^ 
 yune and, for a time, was connected editorially with 
 the paper; but, as he himself declares he was not a 
 success as a reporter. The next position was that of 
 an accountant in a cotton establishment. And here 
 it was that the determination of the man began to 
 show itself. After the day's work he wrote until 
 far into the night, and at length adopted the custom 
 of rising every morning at four o'clock and writing 
 until breakfast. Fortunately, we may say again, he 
 lost his position in 1879, and he determined to strive 
 for a living as a writer and as that alone. That he 
 has been successful is evidenced by the long list of 
 such popular books as Old Creole Days (1879), The 
 Grandissimes (1880), Madame Delphine (1881), 
 
378 George Washington Cable 
 
 Dr. Sevier (1883), The Silent South (1885), and 
 Bonaventure (1888). In 1885 he removed to the 
 North and in recent years he has devoted much time 
 to philanthropic movements ; such as the betterment 
 of prison-labor and the uplifting of the negro. 
 
 It was in 1890 that Cable wrote The Negro Ques- 
 tion — the chief cause of his unpopularity among 
 certain Southerners. His descriptions of the Creoles 
 had been received with but mild remonstrances ; his 
 merciless scourging of the institution of slavery had 
 been read with surprising calmness; but when he 
 rebelled against what he considered unjust treatment 
 of the black man of today, a wave of bitter indigna- 
 tion swept over the extreme Southern States. This 
 is by no means to the credit of the South. His argu- 
 ments should have been met with arguments, not with 
 vituperation and violent threats. But it is as a writer 
 of lasting literature, and not as a political essayist, 
 that Cable will receive notice here. In his Creole 
 stories he has touched a distinctly American vein. 
 Yes, more, "his fictions are saturated with the South 
 and reflect its life with photographic accuracy." 
 There has been some attacking of his characteriza- 
 tion of these strange people ; but it must be remem- 
 bered that he does not pretend to give every phase 
 of Creole life or to exhaust the subject. And in spite 
 of the "mistaken" ideas which his enemies would 
 attribute to him, he portrays a unique civilization, 
 with such skill, with such finish, and, above all, with 
 such kindly charitableness that our hearts warm 
 toward him. 
 
 Cable's artistic ability cannot be doubted. His 
 style, pure, simple, and rather unadorned, almost 
 poetic at times and yet strong and throbbing with 
 life, is something ideal for these days of hasty and 
 careless fiction-writing. There is in all his work an 
 immediate mingling of humor and pathos — a natural 
 and effective succession of laughter and tears. His 
 
George Washington Cable 379 
 
 use of the French dialect, with its quaint, poetic, 
 and yet often striking way of putting things, help 
 no little in bringing about such a result. 
 
 But above all beauty, quaintness, or power of his 
 expression stands the sincere ethical tone of his work. 
 Of "preaching" there is none; but nevertheless, the 
 moral purpose is impressed upon the reader. Among 
 his humble peasants, his ancient families, his 
 curious mingling of other-day grandeur and modern 
 day realities, we find heroes struggling on toward 
 their ideals, and manhood lifting itself above 
 depravity, sorrow, and deadening influences. The 
 school-teacher in Bonaventure will stand in time to 
 come as a noble type of the cross-bearer — one who 
 passed out of the valley of Sorrow up to the hills of 
 Self-Mastery. So, too, with the giant East Flori- 
 dian, "Possun Jones," the simple Christian who 
 changed the heart of the sin-hardened gambler. 
 He and many other characters of this author's 
 creation are of more power perhaps than we, con- 
 temporaries of Cable, are as yet willing to admit. 
 
 Be all this as it may, the fact remains that, in 
 writing these stories, their author opened an abso- 
 lutely new field in the world's literature. The novelty 
 alone would have given him some notoriety. But 
 only the hand of a real artist could have compelled 
 an abiding interest in these remote and up to his 
 time little-heard-of people. To him belongs largely 
 the honor of having preserved the history, traditions, 
 and customs of a fast-vanishing form of civilization. 
 
380 Joel Chandler Harris 
 
 III 
 
 Who has not heard of Uncle Remus and of that 
 master of strategy, Brer Rabbit? The man who 
 introduced them to the world, Joel 
 Joel Chandler Harris (1848- ), is 
 
 Chandler quoted as having said that his work 
 Harris along this line is "stufif prepared dur- 
 
 — ing leisure moments of an active 
 
 (1848= ) journalistic career, and lacks all that 
 goes to make up a permanent litera- 
 ture." If Mr. Harris ever said that, he is mistaken. 
 Long after the very names of his other sketches and 
 of his novels are forgotten, these tales will linger 
 on and on. For folk-lore has ever been the most 
 permanent part of the world's literature. 
 
 The author's life has been a rather quiet and indus- 
 trious one and in most particulars might be dupli- 
 cated in the existence of a thousand and one news- 
 paper men. Born near Eatonton, Georgia, he 
 attended the schools of that rural district and at the 
 age of fourteen was apprenticed to the publisher of 
 a Georgia weekly. The Countryman. In this office 
 he learned the trade of a printer, and for this paper 
 wrote his first sketches. After the war he went to 
 New Orleans as private secretary to a Southern 
 editor and later became an editor himself, the paper 
 being The Advertiser of Forsyth, Georgia. This 
 was followed by five years' experience (1871-1876) 
 on the Savannah Daily News, from which paper he 
 went to The Atlanta Constitution. There he has 
 remained ever since. It is through this daily that 
 he has gained fame ; for in it has appeared the greater 
 part of his unique contribution to folk-lore, — one of 
 the most original contributions, be it remembered, 
 ever made to any literature. 
 
Joel Chandler Harris 381 
 
 It was in 1880 that Uncle Remus: His Scmgs and 
 His Sayings appeared; and this success has been 
 followed by numerous others — Mingo, and Other 
 Sketches (1883), Nights with Uncle Remus (1884), 
 Free Joe, and Other Georgia Sketches (1888). 
 Mingo and Other Sketches introduces the country- 
 men and mountaineers of Georgia, while Free Joe, 
 and Other Georgia Sketches shows the mingled 
 pathos and humor of the negro life. But these while 
 very readable, are not comparable with the Uncle 
 Remus sketches. For this quaint character is more 
 than a mere teller of fables. He is a true type of 
 the aged negro slave and in his mystery-loving way, 
 he shows the inner life of the old South, its pride, 
 its folly, its social distinctions, its mingling of 
 strength and weakness. 
 
 The songs of the negro have often been com- 
 mented upon. Harris catches at times the very spirit 
 and movement of these chants. The black man is 
 your true believer in a final judgment and in a stern, 
 watchful God. He prefers the Old Testament to 
 the New, and in his hymns he seems to catch the 
 warning spirit of the prophets and psalmists. 
 
 "Wen de nashuns er de earf is standin' all aroun'. 
 Who's a gwine ter be chosen fer to w'ar de glory-crown? 
 Who's a gwine fer ter stan' stiff-kneed en bol', 
 En answer to der name at de callin' er de roll ? 
 
 You better come now, if you comin' — 
 
 Old Satan is loose an a bummin' — 
 
 De wheels er distruckshun is a hummin', 
 
 Oh, come 'long sinner, if you comin'." 
 
 In Free Joe we find the same sympathetic under- 
 standing of the negro nature. In fact this one story 
 is worthy of attention as a noble tribute to the faith- 
 fulness of the slave and as a bitter rebuke to the 
 merciless slave-owner. 
 
 But it is when Harris is a narrator of the ancient 
 fables that he shows greatest power. Note the charm 
 and force of the very surroundings or settings of 
 
382 Mary Noailles Murfree 
 
 these stories — the aged negro bending beside the 
 fire on the great wide hearth ; the little boy silenced 
 by the mystery of it all ; the flexible and melodious 
 voice of the story-teller ; the ancient story of animal 
 cunning, old as ^sop and far older ; the abruptness 
 of the ending ; the sudden returning from the world 
 of imagination to the earth of today; — all these 
 things are dramatic helps which the greatest artist 
 might not despise. Then notice, too, the expression, 
 — so explicit, so rugged, so absolutely clear. The 
 quality of the stories themselves needs no defence; 
 they have stood the test of ages. But only a master 
 of narration could have retained in the printed page 
 their quaint simplicity, their tone of mystery, and 
 their subtle charm. To Harris belongs a debt of 
 gratitude for saving these stories from the hands of 
 scientific investigators ; for your philological student 
 is the effective slayer of folk-lore. 
 
 No, these stories of wood-land struggles for 
 existence cannot soon die. They are the folk-lore 
 of the most curious people now living — a people who, 
 in the sudden transformation of their millions from 
 slavery to freedom, have retained that wonder in 
 the things of Nature and that vigor of imagination 
 which have been at all times characteristic of primi- 
 tive races. 
 
 IV 
 
 Another author who deals with a primitive people 
 
 is Mary Noailles Murfree (1850- ), better 
 
 known as Charles Egbert Crad- 
 
 Mary dock. She was born in the ancient 
 
 Noailles family-home near Murfreesboro, Ten- 
 
 Murfree nessee, and in this region spent most 
 
 — of her girlhood. While she was a 
 
 (1850= ) very small child she was made lame 
 
 by a stroke of paralysis; but, from a 
 
 literary standpoint, this was really a fortunate 
 
Mary Noailles Murfree 383 
 
 event ; for, being unable to play with other children, 
 she turned to books for companionship, and this led 
 on to writing. During the war the family had to 
 desert the homestead, and for some time they lived 
 in the little mountain village of Beersheba. There 
 it was that she first studied the curious type of 
 humanity, the Tennessee mountaineer, a people so 
 ignorant, so superstitious, so far behind the world 
 of today as to excite wonder and even pity in all who 
 see them. 
 
 Some years after the war Miss Murfree removed 
 to St. I-ouis, and soon after this change her first 
 book appeared — In the Tennessee Mountains 
 (1884). It seems that her first story, one of the 
 eight in this book, was The Dancin' Party at Harri- 
 son's Cove, which appeared in the May Atlantic, 
 1878; and this success had been followed by another 
 and another until her pen-name, "Charles Egbert 
 Craddock" had become well known before the 
 appearance of her first volume. But even the edi- 
 tors of the Atlantic knew very little about the "man" 
 except that "his" real name was M. N. Murfree, that 
 "he" was a Southerner, that "his" handwriting was 
 very heavy, and that "he" wrote stories which made 
 the hearts of the editors rejoice. When, one 
 spring morning in 1885, a quiet little woman 
 walked into the office and introduced herself as 
 Charles Egbert Craddock, the editorial staff must 
 have felt as Holmes did when he exclaimed, "What 
 do you think? Charles Egbert Craddock is below, 
 and he's a woman!" After In the Tennessee Moun- 
 tains came Where the Battle was Fought (1884), a 
 work neither so natural nor so effective as its prede- 
 cessor. But all its successors. The Prophet of the 
 Great Smoky Mountains (1885), In the Clouds 
 (1886), The Story of Keedon Bluffs (1887), 
 
384 Mary Noailles Murfree 
 
 Stranger People's Country (1891), and others have 
 a novelty, strength, and general charm that show a 
 constantly improving hand. 
 
 Novelty is no test of the permanency of a literary 
 vsrork. Therefore, it is not this quality that has 
 made these books entertaining year after year. It 
 is her skillful art, revealing a curious people to our 
 sympathetic understanding, the vigor and whole- 
 someness of her stories so full of life and the enjoy- 
 ment of it, the strength of homely characters, moved 
 by the same passions as people of higher degree, the 
 environment of mountains, forests, streams and 
 eternal solitude, painted so vividly, — it is these traits 
 that give her work its value. Her plots are not the 
 best features of her writing, although they are 
 sufficient. There is absolutely no "padding." Even 
 the short stories in her first volume are crowded 
 with logically arranged events, and each one might 
 easily be extended to the length of a novel. Again, 
 the dialogue is good, but not surprisingly great. 
 The characters in these tales do not permit such a 
 degree of excellence. These men and women are not 
 ready, keen, or witty talkers; but in their rugged 
 way they are none the less strong and moving. The 
 dialect is not exaggerated ; for, not only in this but 
 also in portrayal of character, in descriptions of 
 scenes, and in every detail, she has conscientiously 
 sought and has obtained almost absolute accuracy. 
 
 And what characters she draws ! There, far 
 secluded among the mountains, we find a strange 
 people, "seeing dimly as through a glass," captives 
 to ignorance and superstition, yet groping on toward 
 their own rude ideals. The universal heart varies 
 so little in any locality! Men and women rejoice, 
 suffer, and desire very much the same in all ages and 
 in all conditions of life ; and Mary Noailles Murfree 
 has simply retold the old story under new conditions. 
 
Mary Noailles Murfree 385 
 
 But is not that something wonderful in itself — to see 
 the ancient lesson in the rugged character of a 
 strange, unknown folk? 
 
 Beyond even the figures of her stories are the 
 beautiful descriptions of mountain scenes. Among 
 these giant hills and deep, dark coves, she discovers 
 an awe-inspiring spirit, and, what is far more diffi- 
 cult than the discovery, she communicates this spirit 
 to her readers. These rugged landscapes do indeed 
 possess a grandeur, a greatness so overwhelming as 
 to make inadequate the simple word "beautiful." 
 Yet, with genuine power she has succeeded in im- 
 prisoning the larger idea, or emotion, of it all. Let 
 those who have seen these vast scenes answer for 
 the truthfulness of such a description as this : 
 
 "He turned and looked at the gorge, as if he 
 expected to see there the pearly disk among the dark 
 obscurements of the night-shadowed mountains. It 
 was instead a vista of many gleaming lights; the 
 sunshine on the river, and the differing lustre of the 
 water in the shadow; the fine crystalline green of 
 the cataract, and the dazzling white of the foam and 
 the spray, the luminous azure of the far-away peaks, 
 and the enamelled glister of the blue sky, — all show- 
 ing between the gloomy, sombre ranges close at 
 hand." 
 
 George W. Cable has told the story of a fast- 
 vanishing people; Joel Chandler Harris is telling 
 the story of a fast-changing people; but Mary 
 Noailles Murfree is telling the story of a people who, 
 in these opening years of the twentieth century, 
 wander on through their limited range of life much 
 as their ancestors for generations have wandered. 
 They, too, will some time vanish — the sooner the 
 better ; but this woman has told in what we hope to 
 be imperishable form, the epic of their life. 
 
386 James Lane Allen 
 
 V 
 
 We seldom realize the greatness of a man until 
 it is almost too late to find his grave. It would seem 
 that we are under bondage to the Past. Shakes- 
 peare has so be-Shakespeared the world that other 
 mortals seem dwarfed out of their true significance. 
 Too often critics surround their assertions about 
 living men with such modifying and restraining 
 clauses as to render the criticism almost void and 
 without meaning. In the brief study of the writer 
 now to be taken up, let us see if there is not some- 
 thing of unusual genius in his creations, — a fulness 
 in his conceptions of life, a remarkable purity in 
 his sentiment, and a style rarely surpassed in Ameri- 
 can Literature. If these things be true, why wait 
 until another century to discover in him a truly great 
 man of letters? 
 
 James Lane Allen (1850- ) was born at 
 
 Lexington, Kentucky, was educated at Transylvania 
 
 University in that State, afterwards 
 
 James Lane taught in that institution, and for 
 
 Allen some time was professor of Latin in 
 
 — Bethany College, Kentucky. Feeling 
 
 (1850- ) that his call to be a writer was far 
 
 stronger than the doubtful charms of 
 
 a college professorship, he went to New York and 
 
 ventured his all on his ability to write. Such works 
 
 as Flute and Violin^ Summer in Arcady, A Kentucky 
 
 Cardinal, Aftermath, and The Choir Invisible are 
 
 sufficient proof of his success. 
 
 It is at times somewhat difficult to place one's 
 finger on just the characteristic that creates the 
 charm of a literary work. James Lane Allen's art 
 is of this evasive kind. Whether it be his plot, his 
 characters, his sentiment, his view of life, or his 
 manner of expression we cannot decide; perhaps 
 
James Lane Allen 387 
 
 when all is said and done, it is their subtle fitness for 
 one another that fills us with pleasure and admira- 
 tion. For the "eternal fitness of things" is a test of 
 masterful literature as well as of many other activi- 
 ties of life. 
 
 The plots of these stories are decidedly simple, 
 uneventful, and therefore not exciting. Here, 
 indeed, we find no concessions to the lover of 
 "thrills" ; no midnight fights, no swaggering, no 
 blood-thirsty heroes ; and yet we read with absorbing 
 interest these minor but significant thoughts and 
 emotions of daily life. The little deeds of life show 
 character; and they are the actions recorded by 
 Allen. In fact plot is almost entirely forgotten in 
 many pages of his novels, and at no time does it 
 consist of more than mere hooks upon which to hang 
 his admirably expressed sentiments, emotions, and 
 philosophy. So quiet, so peaceful, yet so full of the 
 depths of human experience — these are the words 
 that one deems applicable to such stories. The 
 characters, in their naturalness, are no less admirable 
 than the plots in their simplicity and general fitness. 
 Allen makes no special claims for them; they are 
 just such ordinary men and women as we see pass- 
 ing before us every day ; and, yet, how near and dear 
 these persons become before we close the book. From 
 these simple descriptions of the romances of the 
 middle-class life, we turn to look upon our fellow- 
 man with a new conception of his joys and his sor- 
 rows, his worth and his destiny. Such characters 
 as Adam Moss, on the one hand, and King Solomon, 
 on the other, are not soon forgotten. Every one has 
 seen approaches to their prototypes in field and city, 
 and, yet, how few have been the world's writers to 
 realize the deeper, hidden traits of such beings. By 
 word, by deed, or, perhaps more often, by mere sug- 
 gestion, the author portrays in the most natural, 
 
388 James Lane Allen 
 
 unobtrusive manner imaginable their struggles, their 
 defects, their victories, and their fitness as types of 
 suffering humanity. 
 
 It has been mentioned that perhaps much of this 
 is done by the power of suggestion. This, it would 
 seem, is the predominate trait of Allen's style — its 
 suggestiveness. With a manner of expression so 
 clear, so limpid, so musical as to be almost a rival 
 of poetry in beauty, his lightness, sureness, and deft- 
 ness of touch make a more powerful appeal to the 
 imagination than great stores of details could pos- 
 sibly effect. Notice the skill in this description of 
 the wife's death, in Aftermath: 
 
 "By and by I went out to the strawberry bed. The 
 season was too backward. None were turning. . 
 . . At last I gathered a few perfect leaves and 
 blossoms, and presented them to her in silence on a 
 plate with a waiter and napkin. 
 
 "She rewarded me with a laugh, and lifted from 
 the plate a spray of blossoms. 
 
 " 'They will be ripe by the time I am well,' she 
 said, the sunlight of memory coming out upon her 
 face. Then, having touched the wet blossoms with 
 her finger-tips, she dropped them quickly back into 
 the plate. 
 
 " 'How cold they are !' she said, as a shiver ran 
 through her. At the same time she looked quickly, 
 her eyes grown dark with dread. 
 
 "I set the plate hastily down, and she put her hands 
 in mine to warm them." 
 
 So the chapter ends. Turning to the next, we 
 find these words : 
 
 "A month has gone by since Georgiana passed 
 away." 
 
 How suggestive of the terrors of death — terrors 
 very real to most mortals ! Far more effective than 
 elaborate descriptions are such hints ; but seldom has 
 there been a man in American Literature artist 
 
James Lane Allen 339 
 
 enough to recognize their power and use them. The 
 future may place James Lane Allen beside Haw- 
 thorne as one of the masters of subtle, suggestive 
 prose. 
 
 But the purity of his sentiment is more enviable 
 than his style. Here we see a noble love for Nature, 
 — a genuine love, not a sentimental fad of the day! 
 Born and reared in the blue-grass country of Ken- 
 tucky, Allen has pictured its quiet beauty with rare 
 sympathy. The fellowship of Nature is here some- 
 thing real. But more lofty than this love of the 
 visible forms is that which is partially a result of it — 
 the general tone or effect of the completed story. 
 The sentiment of the writer is so pure, so ideal, as 
 to make every reader close the volume with a long- 
 ing for a higher, nobler kind of life. Of quiet humor 
 there is much of good quality; but in pathos Allen 
 has given us specimens, such as the last chapters of 
 Aftermath, so piercing, so suggestive of eternal 
 yearning for that which might have been, that we 
 are compelled to exclaim, "This is true, very true to 
 life ; but why, oh, why must life be thus ?" 
 
 Allen may not be called a prolific writer. The 
 quality of his work would not permit an astonish- 
 ingly large amount. It is to his credit that, while 
 many writers of these latter days have turned them- 
 selves into machines for grinding out innumerable 
 volumes, he bides his time and writes that which 
 will appeal not merely to the moment but to the far 
 future. In him we have an artist, true to his calling, 
 dealing in a quiet, powerful way with those emotions 
 and puzzles of life which man may never quite 
 comprehend, yet will never cease to investigate. 
 
390 Thomas Nelson Page 
 
 We have seen how valuable a literary aid the 
 negro has been. Once more we find in him the source 
 
 of an author's fame. Thomas Nel- 
 
 Thomas son Page (1853- ) has written 
 
 Nelson Page many thoughtful essays and well- 
 
 — worded descriptions, but by far his 
 
 (1853- ) most popular work has been his negro 
 
 dialect stories. Page was born at 
 Oakland, Hanover county, Virginia, was a student 
 at Washington and Lee College, graduated from the 
 law department of the University of Virginia, and 
 has practised his profession at Richmond. His first 
 contribution to the popular magazines is said to have 
 been Unc' Gahe's White Folks, which appeared in 
 Scribner's; and from time to time this was followed 
 by other poems in dialect. However, it was not until 
 1884 that he began to receive wide notice; for it was 
 then that his first story of Virginia life, Marse Chan, 
 appeared. This simple but dramatic tale was greatly 
 praised, and under such encouragement, others of 
 almost equal merit soon followed it. 
 
 In 1887 Page collected these stories into a volume, 
 In Ole Virginia, a book which gained wide popu- 
 larity ; as did, also, his next one. Two Little Confed- 
 erates (1888). Through the works that have fol- 
 lowed since — On New Found River (1891), Eisket 
 and Other Stories (1891), The Old South (1892), 
 Social Life in Old Virginia (1897), and others, he 
 has gained not only greater fame but the affection 
 of the Southern people ; for in some of these volumes 
 he has entered into an elaborate and effective defence 
 of the ante-bellum system and institutions. This is 
 particularly true of The Old South and Social Life 
 in Old Virginia. Dealing here with the former days, 
 he describes in very picturesque and often convin- 
 cing language the old plantation form of government, 
 when each farm was in itself a kingdom or common- 
 
Thomas Nelson Page 391 
 
 wealth, almost independent industrially, yet but one 
 link in the great chain of social units. The pictures 
 given here are much nearer truth than most of those 
 shown by either the older or the younger genera- 
 tion of Southern writers; for they that lost wealth 
 and social position in the great struggle have spoken 
 with too much bitterness and with too evident a 
 desire to find in the Old South an earthly paradise; 
 while the younger writers, sprung up since the war, 
 have, in many cases, so imbibed the later spirit of 
 clash, bustle, and uproar that they cannot sympa- 
 thetically portray the quieter but scarcely less indus- 
 trious methods of yore. Happily, Thomas Nelson 
 Page has reached neither extreme; and his work is 
 therefore of intrinsic value. 
 
 Whatever may be the value of a thoughtful essay, 
 a well-told story is always a much more enviable 
 creation from an artistic standpoint. Posterity 
 doubtless will judge Page not by his serious papers, 
 but by his fiction. And, as we now see his work, he 
 can stand the test. A great amount of romance is 
 growing up around the rugged ruins of the Old 
 South, to soften the rougher features and to adorn 
 with greater beauty the nobler phases of its archi- 
 tecture. Our author has done no small part in this 
 sympathetic labor. Using what seem to be most 
 commonplace incidents and the uncouth but very 
 expressive dialect of the negro, he creates among 
 the old-time scenes tales of surprising dramatic qual- 
 ity. Marse Chan, for instance, holds the attention 
 captive; yet, an analysis of the piece shows only 
 rather quiet incidents and very few of them at that. 
 Meh Lady and various others reveal the same artis- 
 tic ability to create absorbing interest by combina- 
 tions of seemingly insignificant events. The pathos 
 of these stories is produced in the same unconven- 
 tional manner; and the very unexpectedness of the 
 catastrophes makes it all the more effective. 
 
392 Conclusion 
 
 Page has confined himself, for the most part, to 
 very short stories. The short story is not the best 
 field for character-portrayal ; yet the author has cre- 
 ated a few figures of undoubted strength. But sur- 
 passing the action or the characters of these tales is 
 the depth of sentiment, so unaffected, so pure, so 
 unobtrusively obtained, and so effective. The stories 
 composing In Ole Virginia, free, as they are from 
 all taint of sentimentality, are well worth perusal as 
 examples of emotional power gained through the 
 simplest and often the most common-place agencies. 
 It is doubtful whether Page has ever excelled that 
 first volume of tales ; perhaps he never will ; for they 
 approach a rarely attained degree of perfection. 
 
 VII 
 
 With this name we close the list of those to receive 
 €ven a brief study. How many persons have been left 
 unnoticed any well-informed reader of today may 
 easily see. A bare mention of a few of them sug- 
 gests a multitude of others — Albion Tourgee 
 (1838-1905), author of Figs and Thistles, the 
 famous A Fool's Errand, by One of the Fools, and 
 several other volumes ; Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 (1849- )> famous through her Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy and other exceedingly popular novels; 
 John Alfred Macon ( 1851- ), known through 
 his Uncle Gabe Tucker; Harry Stillwell Ed- 
 wards (1854- ), whose Two Runaways, and 
 Other Stories has received a wide reading; Grace 
 King (1859- ), author of Balcony Stories; 
 Mary Johnston (1870- ), author of To Have 
 and To Hold. The list seems almost endless. A 
 glance at the magazines of today would seem to show 
 that at this moment America is depending for its 
 literary entertainment far more upon the South than 
 upon any other one section of the Union. 
 
Conclusion 393 
 
 As we close this survey of Southern Literature we 
 find much to arouse confidence in its future develop- 
 ment. The section has largely recovered from the 
 apathy bred by a pernicious system of human bond- 
 age ; inestimable resources are coming to light ; edu- 
 cational institutions of a high standard are now 
 existing ; wealth and energy are doing marvels. Rich 
 as are the ore, timber, cotton, and sugar fields of these 
 States their literary fields are of equal wealth. The 
 history and traditions of four wars, not including the 
 romances of the Spanish-American conflict and of 
 innumerable Indian campaigns; the story of the 
 subjugation of a vast wilderness; the strange cus- 
 toms of secluded peoples, Tennessee and Kentucky 
 mountaineers, Georgia Crackers, and Louisiana 
 Creoles ; the wild and lonely life of early Texas and 
 Southwestern settlers, the folk-lore of negro and 
 Indian, the no less marvelous tales of modern com- 
 mercial developments, strifes, victories, and failures, 
 — these are but a few of the subjects as yet merely 
 touched by the pens of Southern writers. Poetry, 
 too, will in time return to its own ; and where is sen- 
 timent, Nature, or general environment more sympa- 
 thetic than in these States so beautiful in the gifts of 
 forest and meadow, and yet, so filled with pathetic 
 memories ? 
 
 In the course of time publishing centers will arise, 
 and these, while not absolutely necessary, will be 
 great aids. Writers, remaining in the section that 
 first inspired them, will not so soon lose the inspira- 
 tion ; and they will speak in plainer terms to a public 
 that they know to be in sympathy with them. Many 
 persons would deprecate the fact that our literature 
 is thus divided into Eastern, Western, and Southern. 
 But our country is too vast and too varied, to allow, 
 just now, at least, a decided national uniformity. In 
 this age of inventions, distance may be eradicated; 
 
394 Conclusion 
 
 but home-life and natural environment do not change 
 hastily. So many critics forget that a nation may 
 have its many local flavors and yet possess its great 
 central purposes and characteristics. Far rather is 
 this to be sought for than a body of literature so 
 unvaried in character as to preclude any possibility 
 of its having come from one certain portion of the 
 country. There is a charm in the individuality of 
 sections as well as of human beings. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following list is by no means exhaustive. It 
 includes only a few of most :mportant sources of 
 information. 
 
 American Anthology: Stedman. Houghton, 
 Mifflin and Company. 
 
 American Authors: Rutherford. Franklin Print- 
 ing and Publishing Company. 
 
 American Literature: Hart. Eldredge Brothers. 
 
 American Sonnets: Stedman. Houghton, Mif- 
 flin and Company. 
 
 American Encyclopaedia: D. Appleton and Com- 
 pany. 
 
 Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography: 
 D. Appleton and Company. 
 
 Ballad History of the American Revolution: 
 Moore. 
 
 Bivouac of the Dead and Its Author: Ranck. 
 
 Colonial Literature: Trent and Wells. 
 
 Colonial and Revolutionary Periods: Tyler. 
 
 Contemporaries: Higginson. 
 
 Cyclopaedia of American Literature: Duyckinck. 
 
 De Bow's Com,mercial Review. 
 
 Dictionary of Authors: Allibone. 
 
 Essays and Notes: Bayard Taylor. 
 
 Female Poets of America: Griswold. 
 
 Golden Leaves from American Poets: (Boston, 
 
 History of Virginia: Cooke (American Com- 
 monwealth Series). 
 
 In the Poe Circle: Benton. 
 
 Library of American Literature: Stedman and 
 Hutchinson. Charles L. Webster and Company. 
 
396 Bibliography 
 
 Library of the World's Best Literature: Warner. 
 R. S. Peak and J. A. Hill. 
 
 Life of Poe: Woodberry. 
 
 Life of Poe: Harrison. 
 
 Life of Lanier: Mims. 
 
 Life of William Gilmore Simms: Trent. 
 
 Life, Literary Labors, and Neglected Grave of R. 
 W. Wilde: Jones. 
 
 Living Writers of the South: Davidson (New 
 York, 1869). 
 
 Literary History of America: Wendell. 
 
 Literati of New York: Poe. 
 
 Literature of the Virginias: Ogden. Independent 
 Publishing Company. 
 
 Louisiana Studies: For tier. F. F. Hansell (New- 
 Orleans). 
 
 Memorial of Sidney Lanier: Oilman. 
 
 Mind and Art of Poe: Trent. 
 
 National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: 
 James T. White and Company. 
 
 Negro Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern: Trux. 
 
 New International Encyclopaedia: Dodd, Mead 
 and Company. 
 
 Oddities in Southern Life and Character: Wat- 
 terson. 
 
 Pioneers of Southern Literature: Link. 
 
 Poets of America: Stedman. 
 
 Poets and Poetry of America: Griswold. 
 
 Poets of the South: Painter. American Book 
 Company. 
 
 Prose Writers of America: Griswold. 
 
 Publications of the Modern Languages Associa- 
 tion. 
 
 Publications of the Mississippi Historical Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 Questions at Issue: Gosse. 
 
 Representative Poets of the South: Hubner. 
 Neale Publishing Company. 
 
Bibliography 397 
 
 Sewanee Review: (Sewanee, Tennessee). 
 
 Slave Songs of the United States: Allen, Ware, 
 and Garrison. 
 
 Songs and Ballads: Moore. 
 
 Songs of the Slave: Brown. 
 
 Songs of the South: Clark. Lippincott. 
 
 South Atlantic Quarterly: (Durham, North 
 Carolina). 
 
 Southern Literary Messenger (1834- 1863): 
 Neale Publishing Company. 
 
 Southland Writers: Raymond. 
 
 Southern Literature: Manly. B. 'F. Johnson 
 Publishing Company. 
 
 Southern Quarterly Review (1842- 1855). 
 
 Southern Review (Baltimore). 
 
 Southern Poets: Abemathy. Maynard, Merrill, 
 and Company. 
 
 Southern Poetry Prior to i860: B. F. Johnson 
 Company. 
 
 Southern Poets: Weber. Macmillan Company. 
 
 Southern Writers: Baskerville. 
 
 Southern Writers: Trent. Macmillan Company. 
 
 The Holy Grail: Scherer. Lippincott Company. 
 
 The Land We Love (1865-1869). 
 
 The Old South: Page. 
 
 Under the Microscope: Swinburne. 
 
 War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confed- 
 eracy: Wharton. Philadelphia. 
 
 Women of the South in Literature: Forrest. 
 
 Younger American Poets: Sladen. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abridgment of Debates of 
 
 Congress 157 
 
 Accidence to Christianity 59 
 
 Accidence to Mathematics 59 
 
 Adams 128 
 
 Addison 176 
 
 Adventures of Arthur Gordon 
 
 Pym 230 
 
 Adventures of Captain Simon 
 
 Suggs 167 
 
 Aethra 342 
 
 After His Kind 312 
 
 Aftermath 386, 388, 389 
 
 Ages, The 213 
 
 Aglaus 322 
 
 Agnes Graham 270 
 
 Ahab Mohammed 219, 220 
 
 At Aaraaf 231 
 
 Alexander, Archibald 142 
 
 Allan, John 226 
 
 Allen, James Lane 386 
 
 AUston, Washington 143 
 
 Alone 272 
 
 Bacon, Nathaniel 44, 45 
 
 Bacon's Rebellion 41, 43, 44, 45 
 
 Bagby, George W 258 
 
 Balcony Stories 392 
 
 Baldwin, Joseph 255 
 
 Ballad of Trees and the Master 353 
 
 Battle Cry of Freedom 287 
 
 Battle of Bunker Hill m 
 
 Battle of King's Mountain. ... 107 
 
 Battle Rainbow 304, 305 
 
 Bay Psalm Book 40 
 
 Bee, The 347, 354 
 
 Beechenbrook 295 
 
 Belles of Williamsburg 108 
 
 Bells, The 238 
 
 Benjamin, Park 165 
 
 Benton, Thomas Hart. .99, 104, 135 
 
 Beowulf 15 
 
 Berkley, William 36, 43, 44 
 
 Bessie Brown, M. D 370 
 
 Betrayal 35o 
 
 Beulah 282, 285 
 
 Beverley, Robert 50 
 
 Bibliography 395 
 
 Bill for Protection 128 
 
 Birds of America 14s 
 
 Alsop, George 38 
 
 America 196 
 
 American Hearts of Oak 108 
 
 American Scholar 122 
 
 American Soldiers' Hymn.... 106 
 
 Among the Birds 302 
 
 Anderson, Hugh 74 
 
 Anecdotes of Revolutionary 
 
 War 155 
 
 Angelo, Michael 144 
 
 Annals of Quodlibet 175 
 
 Appeal to the Justice and 
 
 Interests 105 
 
 April Morning 302 
 
 Arms and the Man 306, 309 
 
 Ashby 305 
 
 Aspect of the Pines 341 
 
 Atalantis iSi 
 
 At the Mercy of Tiberias 284 
 
 Audubon, John James 145 
 
 Autobiography (Crockett) 158 
 
 Autobiography (Jefferson) .... 85 
 
 Avolio 336 
 
 B 
 
 Bivouac of the Dead 293 
 
 Black Flag, The 338 
 
 Blair, James 42, 57. 58 
 
 Blessed Hands 216 
 
 Blind Louise 216 
 
 Boker 287 
 
 Bonaventure 378, 379 
 
 Boner, John Henry 365, 366 
 
 Bonnie Blue Flag 289 
 
 Book of the Tile Club 376 
 
 Boucher, Jonathan 104 
 
 Boys' King Arthur 337, 348 
 
 Brackenridge, Hugh H 109, no 
 
 Branch of May 373 
 
 Breviate Book 67 
 
 Browning, Robert. . .117, 225, 
 
 226, 311, 312, 324, 327 
 
 Bryant 18, 122, 287, 326 
 
 Buchanan 65, 249 
 
 Burne- Jones 280 
 
 Burnett, Frances Hodgson 392 
 
 Burns 207 
 
 Burwell Papers 45. 46 
 
 Byrd, William 60 
 
 Byron 117. 122, 204 
 
 Cable, George W IS". 376. 385 
 
 Calhoun, John C..j8, 78, 119. 
 124, 129, 130, 137, 180, 242, 
 
 249, 360 
 California and India 312 
 
 Call All 289 
 
 Calling the Angels In 299 
 
 Candidate, The 194 
 
 Cap and Bells 369 
 
 Captain, My Captain 290 
 
400 
 
 Index 
 
 Carleton, Sir Dudley 32 
 
 Carlyle 312 
 
 Carolina 33o 
 
 Carpe, John 214 
 
 Carr, Dabney 81 
 
 Carruthers, William 170 
 
 Cartoons 296 
 
 Cavaliers of Virginia 170, 171 
 
 Cawein, Madison 366, 371 
 
 Centennial Cantata. 337 
 
 Character of the Province of 
 
 Maryland 38 
 
 Charge at Balaklava 307* 3^0 
 
 Charge of the Light Brigade.. 307 
 
 Charleston 55. 56 
 
 Chase^ Samuel 125 
 
 Chasttne 270 
 
 Chatham 124, 125 
 
 Chaucer 161 
 
 Chevalier Merlin 214 
 
 Cheves "9 
 
 Choate, Rufus 87 
 
 Choir Invisible 386 
 
 Christmas Night in the Quar- 
 ters 368 
 
 Civil War 129* I3i» ^53 
 
 Civil War Period 241 
 
 Clay, Henry.. 35, 119* ^23, 125, 
 
 126, 130, 137. 242, 249, 253, 360 
 
 Clemm, Virginia 229 
 
 Cloud Pictures 338 
 
 Clover 347 
 
 Cobb, Thomas R. R 256 
 
 Coleridge i43 
 
 Collins 332 
 
 Dabney, Richard 199 
 
 Dale, Sir Thomas 29 
 
 Dancing Party at Harrison's 
 
 Cove 383 
 
 Dandridge, Danske 373 
 
 Daughter of Mendoza 207 
 
 Davis, Jefferson 134, 243, 269 
 
 Day of Doom 39, 40 
 
 Death 317 
 
 Declaration of Independence.. 
 
 24, 73, 84, 86, 116 
 
 Defense of American System, . 128 
 
 Descent into Maelstrom 234 
 
 Dewey, George 216, 217 
 
 Dickens 235 
 
 Dickinson, John 88 
 
 Dies Irw 297 
 
 Digest of the Laws of Georgia. 257 
 
 Colonel Carter of Cartersville . 375 
 
 Colonel Carter's Christmas 376 
 
 Colonial Ballads 296 
 
 Comm,entary on the Constitu- 
 tion 115 
 
 Common-Sense in the House- 
 hold 274 
 
 Conjectures and Researches 
 
 Concerning Tasso 203 
 
 Conquered Banner 290, 318 
 
 Conqueror Worm 328 
 
 Consideration of the Propriety 
 
 of Imposing Taxes 105 
 
 Constitution^ The 133 
 
 Constitutional View of the War 249 
 Cooke, John Esten...i79, 213, 
 
 Z75» 283 
 Cooke, Philip Pendleton. .zi3» 
 
 275. 303 
 Cool Thoughts on the Conse- 
 quences 88 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore. .122, 
 
 176, 183, 184, 276 
 
 Corn 347. 35i» 352, 356 
 
 Cotton 118 
 
 Cotton Boll 329 
 
 Craddock, Charles Egbert 382 
 
 Crawford 119 
 
 Creoles of History and Creoles 
 
 of _ Romance _ 151 
 
 Crimes of Andrew Blair 214 
 
 Crockett, David 157 
 
 Cry to Arms 330 
 
 Culture, Southern 153 
 
 Discourse of the Plantations.. 26 
 Discourse on Constitution and 
 Government of United States 32 
 
 Disenchantment 372 
 
 Disquisition on Government — 132 
 
 Dissertation on Slavery 115 
 
 Dixie 196, 224, 2S7, 289 
 
 Dorsey, Sarah Anne 269 
 
 Douglas, David 74 
 
 Doyle, Conan 230 
 
 Drayton, John 142 
 
 Drayton, William Henry. .17, 33, 78 
 
 Dr. Bluff in Russia 151 
 
 Dr. Sevier 378 
 
 Dryden 33 
 
 Duelling I37 
 
 Dukesborough Tales 265, 266 
 
 Dulany, Daniel 105 
 
 Education in the South 71, 
 
 72, 119, 142 
 
 Edwards, Harry Stillwell 392 
 
 B^yPt and Its Monuments. . . , 148 
 
 Eisket 390 
 
 Elegiac Ode 307 
 
 Ellen, Henry 306 
 
 Eloquence, Southern. .123, 128, 360 
 
 .Emerson 18 
 
 Emmett, Daniel 196, 287 
 
 EngUsh Grammar 59 
 
 English Novels 347 
 
 Epigram 200 
 
 Erin's Flag 317 
 
 Essay on Human Bile 108 
 
 Essays on Taste, Morals, and 
 
 Policy 169 
 
 Euripides 200 
 
 Eutaw 184 
 
 Everett, Edwin 129 
 
 Every Year 224 
 
 Examination of Dred Scott 
 
 Case 137 
 
 Exploits and Adventures 158 
 
Ind«x 
 
 401 
 
 Fall of the House of Usher. . 
 
 230, 234 
 
 Farewell Address 89 
 
 Fatal Marriage 264 
 
 Federalist 88, 93, 94, 116 
 
 Fiction, Southern. .. .153, 260, 373 
 
 Fielding 153 
 
 Figs and Thistles 392 
 
 Filia Ecclesiae 269 
 
 Five Resolutions 81 
 
 Flash, Henry 313 
 
 Flower Life 323 
 
 Flush Times in Alabama and 
 
 Mississippi 255 
 
 Flute and Violin 386 
 
 Fool's Errand 392 
 
 For Love's Sake 296 
 
 Foster, Stephen 287 
 
 Free Joe 381 
 
 Froissart Ballads 313 
 
 Fugitive Stansas 115 
 
 Galloway, Joseph 88 
 
 Garden, Alexander 67, 155 
 
 Gayarr€, Charles 150 
 
 Generall Historie of Virginia. . 22 
 
 Gentleman Vagabond 376 
 
 Georgian's Appeal 257 
 
 Georgia Scenes 161, 162 
 
 Gibbons, James Sloan 287 
 
 Gilmore, Patrick 288 
 
 Glimpses of Spain 215 
 
 Gold Bug 227, 234 
 
 Golden Dragon 312 
 
 Good Newes from Virginia 29 
 
 Gordon yFrank 262 
 
 Goulding, Francis 261 
 
 Grady, Henry 357, 360, 361 
 
 Grandissimes 377 
 
 Grave in Hollywood Cemetery. 296 
 
 Great Pacificator 126 
 
 Greek Revolution, Speech on. . 128 
 
 Greek Slave 304 
 
 Gregories of Hackwood 206 
 
 Griswold 232 
 
 Guy Rivers 185 
 
 H 
 
 Hail Columbia 196 
 
 Hamilton, Governor 133 
 
 Hammond, John 37 
 
 Hansford 281 
 
 Harland, Marion 272 
 
 Harper, Robert 142 
 
 Harris, Joel Chandler 367, 
 
 369, 380, 385 
 
 Hartwell, Henry 58 
 
 Hatchet Story 100 
 
 Haunted Homestead 264 
 
 Hawks, Francis Lister 148 
 
 Hawthorne 122, 176, 269, 389 
 
 Hayne, Paul Hamilton 187, 
 
 301, 303. 312* 334. 37^ 
 Hayne, Robert Young. .35, 124, 
 
 128, 138, 334 
 
 Hayne, William 373 
 
 Health, A 209 
 
 Henry, Patrick 79 
 
 Hentz, Caroline Lee 281 
 
 Hero of the Commune 297 
 
 Hewlings 108 
 
 Higginson, Thomas W 354 
 
 Hills, The 302 
 
 Hilt to Hilt 276 
 
 Historical Essay on Louisiana. 150 
 
 Historie of Travaile 29 
 
 History^ and Present State of 
 
 Virginia So 
 
 History of American Revolu- 
 tion 96 
 
 History of Carolina 54 
 
 History of Dividing Line 61 
 
 History of First Discovery and 
 
 Settlement of^ Virginia 63 
 
 History of Louisiana 150 
 
 History of North Carolina 148 
 
 History of Protestant Episcopal 
 
 Church 148 
 
 History of Revolution in South 
 
 Carolina 96 
 
 History of United States. .170, 
 
 248, 249 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 370 
 
 Home, Sweet Home 196, 305 
 
 Homer 311 
 
 Hooper, Johnson. . : 166 
 
 Hope, James Barron 3,54— 
 
 Hopkinson, Joseph 190 
 
 Horse-Shoe Robinson 175, 176 
 
 Houston, Samuel 123, 249 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward 288 
 
 Howell, Rednap 108 
 
 Humble Enquiry 104 
 
 Humor, Southern. ... 123, 154, 
 
 160, 168 
 
 Husks 273 
 
 Hymns 327 
 
 Hymns to the Gods 222, 223 
 
 Hymn to My Redeemer 33 
 
 Ignorance in the South 48, 49 
 
 Iliad, Translation of 195 
 
 In A King-Cambyses Vein 373 
 
 Independence 106 
 
 In^im I-egion of Christ 63 
 
 Indian Massacres 43 
 
 Ines 282, 286 
 
 Infelice 283 
 
 Ingram 45 
 
 In Qh Virginia 390> 395 
 
402 
 
 Index 
 
 In the Clouds 383 
 
 In the Tennessee Mountains. . 383 
 In the Wheat Field. . . , 340 
 
 Jackson, Andrew. .. .131, 136, 
 
 i39t 158, 202 
 
 Jamestown 27, 32, 34 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas.. 65, 81, 82, 125 
 
 John Brown's Body 287 
 
 Johnston, Mary 392 
 
 Johnston, Richard Malcolm 
 
 257. 265 
 
 Israfel 238 
 
 / Wonder What Maud Will 
 Say 369 
 
 Jones, Hugh 99 
 
 Journal of the Proceedings 77 
 
 Journey to the Land of Eden. . 61 
 
 Joy and Other Poems 373 
 
 Jud Brownin's Account of 
 
 Rubinstein's Playing 259 
 
 Judith 273 
 
 K 
 
 Katie 324 
 
 Katharine Walton 1 84 
 
 Keats 117, 236, 341 
 
 Kennedy, John P. . . .i6g, 174, 228 
 
 Kentucky Cardinal 325, 326 
 
 Key, Francis Scott 196 
 
 Lady Yeardley's Guest 298 
 
 Lafayette 226, 253 
 
 Lamar, Mirabeau 206, 207 
 
 Lamartine 254 
 
 Lan^land 161 
 
 Lanier, Sidney.. 18, 229, 237, 
 
 312, 321, 342, 343 
 
 Last of the Hours 216 
 
 Laurens, Henry : 88, 91 
 
 La Warr 27 
 
 Law of Slavery 256, 257, 258 
 
 Lawson, John 54, 149 
 
 Leah and Rachel 37 
 
 Leather Stockings and Silk . . 
 
 27s. 279 
 
 Lee, Arthur 105 
 
 Lee, Henry 105 
 
 Lee, R. H 81, 88 
 
 Legar6, Hugh S 142 
 
 Legar€, James M 180, 221 
 
 Legends and Lyrics 336 
 
 Leoni di Monota 307 
 
 Letters from an Honest Slave- 
 holder 257 
 
 Letters from Georgia to Massa- 
 chusetts 162 
 
 Letters of a Freeman 79 
 
 Letters of the British Spy 102 
 
 Letters to a Young Relative.. 126 
 
 Le Vert, Octavia W 253 
 
 Library of American Literature 366 
 Life and Character of Edgar 
 
 A. Poe 304 
 
 Life and Love 373 
 
 Life of Clay 211, 212 
 
 Mabie, Hamilton 353 
 
 Mabinogion 345, 348 
 
 MacDonald's Raid 342 
 
 Macon, John A 392 
 
 Madame Delphine 377 
 
 Madison, James 88, 93, 125 
 
 !^Iagaz|ne5, Southern. ..,.,.,., 122 
 
 Key to Disunion Conspiracy.. 172 
 
 Kin^, Grace 392 
 
 Kipling 230 
 
 Kittredge, Walter 288 
 
 Knot of Blue 369 
 
 Life of Dante 203 
 
 Life of Governor Allen 270 
 
 Life of Hugh S. Legar6 336 
 
 Life of Jefferson 87 
 
 Life of Patrick Henry 102 
 
 Life of Robert Y. Hayne 336 
 
 Life of Simms 332 
 
 Life of Washington 96, 99 
 
 Life of Wirt 175 
 
 Light'ood Fire 366 
 
 Literary Future of the South. . 393 
 Literary Material, Southern. . 
 
 374. 393 
 
 Literati of New York 271 
 
 Literature of the United States 170 
 
 Little Gilfen 301 
 
 Little Lord Fauntleroy 392 
 
 Live Indian 165 
 
 Living Writers of the South.. 283 
 
 Locke 125 
 
 Longfellow 122, 287, 314, 
 
 326, 336, 338 
 
 Longstreet, Augustus B 119, 160 
 
 Lost Pleiad 182 
 
 Louisiana Purchase 84 
 
 Love and Wrong 313 
 
 Lovelace 332 
 
 Loveman, Robert 373 
 
 Lowell 287, 350 
 
 Lowndes 119 
 
 Loyal 302 
 
 Lucia Dore 270 
 
 Lyrics and Idylls 371 
 
 Lyric of Action 336, 339 
 
 M 
 
 Mah Lady 391 
 
 Major Jones's Chronicles of 
 
 Pineville 165 
 
 Major Jones's Courtship 165 
 
 Major Jones's Sketches of 
 
 Travel 165 
 
 Map of the Bay and the R,ivers 24 
 
Index 
 
 403 
 
 Map of Virginia 22 
 
 Marching Through Georgia. , . . 288 
 
 Marooner's Island 362 
 
 Marrying Through Prudential 
 
 Motives 272 
 
 Marse Chan 390, 391 
 
 Marshall, Humphrey 127 
 
 Marshall, John 95, 98 
 
 Marshes of Glynn... 349, 350, 352 
 
 Maryland 289 
 
 Mason, George 82 
 
 Masque of Red Death 234 
 
 Matthews, Brander 235 
 
 Maxwell, William 198, 199 
 
 McCarthy, Harry 289 
 
 McClurg, James 108 
 
 McGuire, John P 129 
 
 Meek, Alexander B 291 
 
 Meekin's Tzvinses 259 
 
 Mellichampe 184 
 
 Memoirs of My Own Times 142 
 
 Memoirs of the Revolution. ... 142 
 
 Memorial Ode 307, 309 
 
 Metamorphoses 33 
 
 Milton 20, 21, 125, 236 
 
 Mingo 381 
 
 Mirtan 273 
 
 Missouri Compromise 12S, 
 
 132, 136 
 
 Mitchell, Donald 303 
 
 Mitten, JVilUam 162 
 
 Nachoochee 262 
 
 Narrq.tive of Confinement .. .^^^ 92 
 
 Narrative of the Proceedings.. 67 
 
 National Consciousness 41 
 
 Negro, Southern 187 
 
 Negro in Literature 374 
 
 Negro Question 378 
 
 New England's Trials 22 
 
 Newes from Virginia 19. 36 
 
 New South 357, 363 
 
 Ode 332 
 
 Ode (Hope) 307 
 
 Ode to Ease 205 
 
 Oglethorpe, Governor 74 
 
 O'Hara, Theodfliet- 293 
 
 Old Bachelor 102 
 
 Old Bullion 135 
 
 Old Creole Days 377 
 
 Old Kentucky Home 192, 287 
 
 Old Mark Langston 266 
 
 Old Oaken Bucket 196 
 
 Mocaria 282 
 
 Mocking Bird, The.. 146, 147, 
 
 301, 340 
 
 Monaldi 143 
 
 Monitor, The 100 
 
 Monody on Pinckney 179, 181 
 
 Monroe 130 
 
 Moore, Tom 207, 322 
 
 Morals and Dogma of Free- 
 masonry 223 
 
 Morris, William 338 
 
 Mountain of the Lovers 336 
 
 "Mozis Addums" 259 
 
 Mr. Absalom Billingslea 266, 267 
 
 Mr. Ambrose' s Letters 175 
 
 Mr. Billy Downs 266 
 
 MS. Found in a Bottle 228 
 
 Munford, Robert 194 
 
 Munford, William 194 
 
 Murders in the Rue Morgue. . 
 
 230» 235 
 
 Murfree, Mary Noailles 382 
 
 Muscadines 341 
 
 Music and Poetry 348 
 
 Music _ in Camp 304, 305 
 
 My Life Is Like the Summer 
 
 Rose 204 
 
 My Springs 345 
 
 Mystei-y of Cro-A-Tan 297 
 
 Mystery of Marie Roget 230 
 
 My Uncle Flatback's Plantation. 259 
 
 N 
 
 Newspapers, Southern 156 
 
 Newton 124 
 
 Nibelungen Lied 15 
 
 Nights with Uncle Remus 381 
 
 Night Thoughts 212 
 
 North Carolina Customs 62 
 
 Norwood, Henry 36 
 
 Notes on the State of Virginia. 85 
 
 NugCB 223 
 
 Nullification 131 
 
 O 
 
 Old Songs and New 296 
 
 Old South 390 
 
 Olive Branch aoo 
 
 On New Found River 390 
 
 On the Decline of Faith 339 
 
 Orators, Southern 123 
 
 Ordinance of Nullification 139 
 
 Orta-Undis 219 
 
 Our Saviour's Divine Sermon. 58 
 
 Ovid 33 
 
 Page, Thomas Nelson. .366, 369, 390 
 
 Palmer, John W 312 
 
 Pamola 270 
 
 Panama Congress 139 
 
 Parliamentary Manual 85 
 
 Parsons* Case 80 
 
 Partisan, The 184 
 
 Partisan Leader 171, 172. i73 
 
 Party Leaders 255 
 
 Past, The 327 
 
 Patriots, The 194 
 
 Payne, John Howard 196 
 
 Pearce A7nderson^s Will 266 
 
 Peck, Samuel Minturn 369 
 
 Percy, George 26 
 
 Period of Expansion 117 
 
 Petrarch 200 
 
 Picture-Song 17. 210 
 
 Pike, Albert 221, 289 
 
 Pinkney, Edward Coate 208 
 
404 
 
 Index 
 
 Pinkney, Ntnian 142 
 
 Pinkney, William 123 
 
 Plantation Melodies 187 
 
 Planter's Northern Bride 281 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan 153, 221, 
 
 225» 328, 335, 342 
 
 Poems (Hayne) 336 
 
 Poems (Poe) 228 
 
 Poems by Amelia ^. 218 
 
 Poe's Cottage at Fordham, 366 
 
 Poetical Epistle to George 
 
 Washington 1 09 
 
 Poetry, Southern 185, 187, 365 
 
 Poets and Poetry of America. . 216 
 
 Poets, The 320 
 
 Pocahontas 26, 36 
 
 Political Detection 105 
 
 Poor Whites 160 
 
 Pope 33 
 
 Porteus 125 
 
 Pory, John 31 
 
 Powhatan 24 
 
 Prentice, George D 211, 360 
 
 Prenticeana 212 
 
 Presentment 316 
 
 Present State of Virginia 59 
 
 Present State of Virginia and 
 
 the College 58 
 
 Preston, Margaret. . . . 180, 294, 5^ 
 Preston, Will Campbell. TT. .. . 123 
 Principles of Rent, Wages, Etc. 169 
 
 Printing in the South 40, 43 
 
 Probationary Odes of Jonathan 
 
 Pindar 115 
 
 Progress to the Mines 61 
 
 Prophet _ of Great Smoky 
 
 Mountains 383 
 
 Prose Romances 230 
 
 Prose Sketches and Poems.. 
 
 222, 223 
 
 R 
 
 Rainbow 102 
 
 Ramsay, David 67, 88, 95, 120 
 
 Randall, James R 290 
 
 Randolph, John. .67, 123, 124, 
 
 128, i3S» 137 
 
 Raphael 144 
 
 Raven, The 231 
 
 Reason for Literary Barren- 
 ness 47 
 
 Red Eagle 29 1 
 
 Red Leaves and Roses 371 
 
 Reese, Lizette ; 373 
 
 Regeneration 68 
 
 Regulus 297 
 
 Religious Intolerance 49 
 
 Resignation 115 
 
 Resolution of the Virginia 
 
 House of Burgesses 85 
 
 Rest 317 
 
 Retribution 263, 264 
 
 Retrospects and Prospects 349 
 
 Reunited 315 
 
 Revenge of Hamish 347 
 
 Reveries of a Bachelor 303 
 
 Revolutionary Period 71 
 
 Revolutionary Poetry 106 
 
 Rich, R 19, 36 
 
 Rise and Fall of Confederacy. 244 
 
 Ritchie 249 
 
 Rob of the Bowl 75 
 
 Rodolph 208, 210 
 
 Rolfe, John 36 
 
 Roll, Jordan, Roll i8g 
 
 Romance of Biography 148 
 
 Root, George 287, 288 
 
 Russell, Irwin 366, 367 
 
 Rowland, Kate Mason 300 
 
 Sage of Monticello 82 
 
 Sandys, George 32 
 
 Sapelo 262 
 
 Sappho 200 
 
 Sardou 230 
 
 Sass, George H 373 
 
 Savannah Freeman's Song. ... 190 
 
 School for Politics 151 
 
 Science of English Verse. .347, 349 
 
 Scott, Walter 180, 184 
 
 Scout, The 184 
 
 Secession 132 
 
 Seneca 200 
 
 Serenade, A 208, 209 
 
 Sermon of the Blind Preacher. 102 
 
 Shade of the Trees 299 
 
 Shadows of the Valley 314 
 
 Shakespeare. . 16, 28, 117, 124, 
 
 125, 236 
 Shakspere and His Predecessors 349 
 
 Shaw, John 193 
 
 Shelley 117, 122, 341 
 
 Sherlock 125 
 
 Sidney 125 
 
 Sidney, William Edward 172 
 
 Silent South 378 
 
 Silver Wood. _ 295 
 
 Simms, William Gilmore. .169, 
 
 174, 179, 276, 322, 335 
 
 Six Political Discourses 112 
 
 Slavery, . Effects of . .48, 125, 
 
 127, 131, 132, 260, 261 
 
 Sledd, Benjamin 373 
 
 Sleighing Song 194 
 
 Small, Dr 83 
 
 Smith, Francis H 375 
 
 Smith, John 20, 65 
 
 Smollett IS3 
 
 Social Life in Old Virginia... 390 
 
 Society, Southern 374 
 
 Soldier Boy , 289 
 
 Song 193 
 
 Song, A 292 
 
 Song of the Chattahoochee . . 
 
 347. 350, 3Si> 354 
 
 Song of the Mysitc 319 
 
 Songs and Poems of the South. 291 
 Songs from a Georgia Garden. 373 
 
 Songs of a Day 371 
 
 Sot-Weed Factor 52 
 
Index 
 
 405 
 
 Sot-Weed Redivivus 54 
 
 South Carolina Exposition.... 131 
 Southern Literary Messenger . . 
 186, 213, 229, 259, 266, 270, 303 
 
 Southern Manor System 48 
 
 Southrons, Hear Your Country 289 
 Souvenirs of Distinguished 
 
 People 254 
 
 Souvenirs of Travel 254 
 
 Souvenirs of the War 254 
 
 Southworth, Emma 263 
 
 Spain, Her InstittitionSj Etc 215 
 
 Speckled Bird, The 284 
 
 Stanton, Frank L 366, 370 
 
 Star-Spangled Banner 197 
 
 Statecraft 121 
 
 Steele 176 
 
 St. Elmo 283, 284 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H 247 
 
 Stephens, William 77 
 
 Sterne 153 
 
 Stith, William 64 
 
 St. John^ Henry 276 
 
 Stoddard, Richard Henry 333 
 
 Stonewall Jackson 314 
 
 Stonewall Jackson's Wa:if 312 
 
 Stories of the Old Dominion.. 276 
 
 Story of Keedon Bluffs 383 
 
 Story of Mary Washington... 273 
 
 Strachey, William 27 
 
 Stranger People's Country.... 383 
 
 Stuart 296 
 
 Summary View of the Rights 
 
 of British America 85 
 
 Summer Bower 325, 326 
 
 Summer in Arcady .'. 386 
 
 Sunnybank 273 
 
 Sunrise 348, 349, 330, 353 
 
 Surrey of Eagle's Nest, . . .276, 280 
 
 Swallow Barn 175, 1 76 
 
 Swamp Fox, The 182 
 
 Suanee River 192, 287 
 
 Swinburne 235, 336 
 
 Siving Low, Sweet Chariot 189 
 
 Sword of Robert Lee 318, 319 
 
 Sylphs of the Seasons 143 
 
 Symphony, The 347, 354 
 
 Sylvan Lyrics 373 
 
 Tabb, John B 373 
 
 Tahlequah 262 
 
 Tailfer, Patrick 74 
 
 Tariff Compromise 128 
 
 Tariff of Abominations 131 
 
 Tasso 203 
 
 Taylor, Bayard 336, 347 
 
 Tempest, The 36 
 
 Tennyson 117, 225, 307, 333 
 
 Tenting on the Old Camp 
 
 Ground 288 
 
 Testimony of the Spirit 68 
 
 Thackeray 175 
 
 Thirty Years' View 137 
 
 Thompson, John R. . .^^ 3p2. 
 
 Thompson, Maurice. . .Tsi, 341, 342 
 
 Thompson, William T 164 
 
 Thorpe, George 171 
 
 Thought, A 317 
 
 Three Summer Studies 310 
 
 Ticknor, Francis 300 
 
 Tiger-Lilies 343, 345 
 
 Tillotson 125 
 
 Timrod, Henry.. 303, 312, 321, 
 
 335» 337, 338 
 
 To a Fair Lady 199 
 
 To a Lily 219, 220 
 
 To Anne 198 
 
 To a Sea-Shell 218 
 
 To Have and To Hold 392 
 
 Tom Grogan 376 
 
 To My Daughter Lily 214 
 
 Toombs, Robert 245 
 
 To Spring 224 
 
 To the Mocking Bird (Pike) . . 223 
 To the Mocking Bird (Wilde) . 205 
 
 To Time 322 
 
 Tour of the North and Down 
 
 East 158 
 
 Tourgee, A. W 358, 392 
 
 Tramp, Tramp, Tramp 288 
 
 Trent, W. P 134, 332, 333 
 
 Tricolor, The 181 
 
 Triumph of Music 371 
 
 Troup 119 
 
 True Narrative of Georgia..,. 74 
 True Relation of Virginia ... 20, 22 
 True Reportory of the Wrack. 27 
 
 Truth and Reason 216 
 
 Tucker, George 87, 169 
 
 Tucker, Nathaniel B 171 
 
 Tucker, St. George. . .109, 115, 
 
 135, 169, 171, 281 
 
 Twilight at Sea 218 
 
 Two Little Confederates 390 
 
 Two Runaivays 392 
 
 Tyler 132 
 
 U 
 
 Ulalume 237 
 
 Uncle Gabe Tucker 392 
 
 Uncle Remus 380 
 
 Uncle Remus, His Songs and 
 
 His Sayings 381 
 
 Unc' Gabe's White Folks 390 
 
 Under the Empire 307 
 
 Under the Pines 336 
 
 Units of Southern Society 47, 73 
 
 Universal History Americanised 96 
 University of Virginia 84 
 
 Valley of the Shenandoah 170 I 
 
 Vance, Zebulon B 250 
 
 Vanet Florence 214, 275 I 
 
 Vashti 283 
 
 Verne 230 
 
 Verse Memorials 206 
 
406 
 
 Index 
 
 Vicar of WakeHeld 165 
 
 View of Causes' and Conse- 
 quences of American Revolu- 
 tion 104 
 
 View of South Carolina 142 
 
 Virginia 304 
 
 Virginia Comedians 276, 279 
 
 Virginia Company 22, 33, 71 
 
 Waddell, Moses , . 130, 161 
 
 Wallis, Severn Teackle 215 
 
 Walsh, Robert 123 
 
 Warof 1812 127 
 
 War-Poetry of the South 181 
 
 Washington, George 88, 105, 
 
 109, 126 
 
 Washington's Wedding 89 
 
 Watchers of the Hearth 373 
 
 Watterson, Henry 360 
 
 We Are Coming, Father 
 
 Ahra'am 287 
 
 Webster, Daniel.. 35, 129, 130, 
 
 132, 137, 138, 253 
 
 Webster-Hay ne Debate 138 
 
 Weems, Mason L 95, 100 
 
 Welby, Amelia 217 
 
 Well-Worn Roads 375 
 
 West, Thomas 27 
 
 Wharton, Charles Henry 109 
 
 What I Did with My Fifty 
 
 Millions 259 
 
 What She Brought Me 341 
 
 When Johnny Comes Marching 
 
 Home 288 
 
 Where the Battle Was Fought. 383 
 
 Virginia Gazette 43 
 
 Virginia Hearts of Oak 107 
 
 Virginians of the Valley 301 
 
 Virginia Patriotism 256 
 
 Vision of Poetry 331 
 
 Vision of Sir Launfal 219 
 
 Vivians, The 270 
 
 Voyage to the Moon 170 
 
 W 
 
 Whippoorwill, The 372 
 
 Whispering Pines 366 
 
 Whitaker, Alexander 29 
 
 Whitaker, William 29 
 
 White, Andrew 37 
 
 Whitefield, George 68 
 
 White Umbrella in Mexico 375 
 
 Whitman 225, 287, 290 
 
 Whittier. . . .122, 211, 287, 336, 338 
 
 Widow Guthrie 266 
 
 Widow Rugby's Husband 167 
 
 Widow's Son 264 
 
 Wife of Brittany 342 
 
 Wilde, Richard Henry 201 
 
 Wilkerson, James 142 
 
 William and Mary College.. 42, 
 
 S7. 58, 59, 64, 72 
 
 Will and the Wing 334 
 
 Wilson, Augusta Evans 281 
 
 Wilson, Robert Burns 373 
 
 Wirt, William 80, 95, 101, 215 
 
 Woodcraft 184 
 
 Woodworth 196 
 
 Wordsworth 122, 333 
 
 Work, Henry Clay 288 
 
 Yankee Doodle 287 
 
 Yeardley, George 30 
 
 Yemassee 184 
 
 Yonge, Francis 6y 
 
 Young Marooners 67 
 
 Youth and Age 201 
 
 Zubly, John J 104 
 
■.;!S