the numerous elaborate review and magazine articles, of which a protracted discussion of the Civil Warfare of the South in the Southern Literary Messenger, the American Loyalists of the Revolutionary Period in the Southern Quarterly Review, and frequent papers illustrating the social and political history of the South, are the most noticeable. Mr. Simms's contributions to Biography embrace a Life of Francis Marion, embodying a minute and comprehensive view of the partisan warfare in which he was engaged; The Life of John Smith, which affords opportunity for the author's best narrative talent and display of the picturesque; a kindred subject, The Life of the Chevalier Bayard, handled con amore, and The Life of General Greene, of the Revolution. These are all works of considerable extent, and are elaborated with care.

In Criticism, Mr. Simms's pen has traversed the wide field of the literature of his day, both foreign and at home. He has edited the imputed plays of Shakespeare, with notes and preliminary essays.*

To Periodical literature he has always been a liberal contributor, and has himself founded and conducted several reviews and magazines. Among these may be mentioned The Southern Literary Gazette, a monthly magazine, which reached two volumes in 1525; The Cosmopolitan, An Occasional; The Magnolia, or Southern Apalachian, a literary magazine and monthly review, published at Charleston in 1842-3; The Southern and Western Monthly Magazine and Review, published in two volumes in 1845, which he edited; while he has frequently contributed to the Knickerbocker, Orion, Southern Literary Messenger, Graham's, Godey's, and other magazines. A review of Mrs. Trollope, in the American Quarterly for 1832, attracted considerable attention at the time. In 1849, Mr. Simms became editor of the Southern Quarterly Review, to which he had previously contributed, and which was revived by his writings and personal influence. Several Miscel laneous productions may be introduced in this connexion. The Book of my Lady, a melange, in 1833; Views and Reviews of American History, Literature, and Art, including several lectures, critical papers, and biographical sketches; Father Abbot, or the Home Tourist, a Medley, einbracing sketches of scenery, life, manners, and customs of the South; Egeria, or Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside, a collection of aphorisms, and brief essays in prose and verse; Southward Ho! a species of Decameron, in which a group of travellers interchanging opinion and criticism, discuss the scenery and circumstances of the South, with frequent introduction of song and story; The Morals of Slavery, first published in the Southern Literary Messenger, and since included in the voluine entitled The ProSlavery Argument.

In addition to the-e numerous literary productions, Mr. Simms is the author of several orations on public occasions,―The Social Principle, the True Secret of National Permanence, delivered in

A Supplement to the Plays of William Shakespeare, compri-ig the Seven Dramas wilch have been ascribed to his pen, it which are not included with his writlugs in modern edi tions, edited with notes, and an Introduction to each play. 8vo. Cooledge & Brother: New York. 1648,

The numerous writings of Mr. Simms are characterized by their earnestness, sincerity, and thoroughness. Hard worker as he is in litera ture, he pursues each subject with new zeal and enthusiasin. They are a remarkable series of works, when it is considered how large a portion of them involve no inconsiderable thought and original research. But Mr. Simms is no ordinary worker. Much as he has accomplished, much lies before him,—and in the prime of life, with a physical constitution which answers every demand of the active intellect, he still pursues new game in the literary world.

As an author, he has pursued an honorable, manly career. His constant engagements in the press, as a critic and reviewer, have given him opportunities of extending favors to his brother writers, which he has freely employed. His generosity in this respect is noticeable. Nor has this kindness been limited by any local feeling; while his own state has found in him one of the chief, in a literary view the chief, supporter of her interests. As a novelist, Mr. Simins is vigorous in delineation, dramatic in action, poetic in his description of scenery, a master of plot, and skilled in the arts of the practised story teller. His own tastes lead him to the composition of poetry and the provinces of imaginative literature, and ho is apt to introduce much of. their spirit into his prose creations. lis powers as an essayist, foud of discussing the philosophy

of his subject, are of a high order. He is ingenious in speculation and fertile in argument. Many as are his writings, there is not one of them which does not exhibit some ingenious, worthy, truthful quality.

THE BARD.

Where dwells the spirit of the Bard-what sky Persuades his daring wing,

Folded in soft carnation, or in snow

Still sleeping, far o'er summits of the cloud,
And, with a seeming, sweet unconsciousness,
Wooing his plume, through baffling storms to fly,
Assured of all that ever yet might bless

The spirit, by love and loftiest hope made proud,
Would he but struggle for the dear caress!—
Or would his giant spring,

Impelled by holiest ire,

Assail the sullen summits of the storm,

Beat with broad breast and still impatient form,
Where clouds unfold themselves in leaping fire!
What vision wins his soul,-

What passion wings his flight,

What dream of conquest woos his eager eye!—
How glows he with the strife,-

How spurns he at control,

With what unmeasured rage would he defy

The foes that rise around and threaten life!-
His upward flight is fair,

He goes through parting air,

He breaks the barrier cloud, he sees the eye that's there,

The centre of the realm of storm that mocked him but to dare!

And now he grasps the prize,

That on the summit lies,

And binds the burning jewel to his brow;
Transfigured by its bright,

He wears a nightier face,

Nor grovels more in likeness of the earth;—

His wing a bolder flight,

His step a wilder grace,

He glows, the creature of a holier birth ;

Suns sing, and stars glow glad around his light;
And thus he speeds afar,

'Mid gathering sun and star,

The sov'reign, he, of worlds, where these but subjects

are;

The feet of hissing things,
Whose toil it is to tear,

And cramp the glorious creature born to wings!
Ah! should he once despair!-

Not lonely, with the sad nymph Solitude,
Deep in the cover of the ancient wood,
Where the sun leaves him, and the happy dawn,
Stealing with blushes over the gray lawn,
Stills finds him, all forgetful of the flight
Of hours, that passing still from dark to bright,
Know not to loiter,-all their progress naught:-
His eye, unconscious of the day, is bright
With inward vision; till, as sudden freed,
By the superior quest of a proud thought,
He darts away with an unmeasured speed;
His pinion purpling as he gains the height,
Where still, though all obscured from mortal sight,
He bathes him in the late smiles of the sun;—
And oh! the glory, as he guides his steed,
Flakes from his pinions falling, as they soar
To mounts where Eos binds her buskins on
And proud Artemis, watching by her well,
For one,-sole fortunate of all his race,-
With hand upon his mouth her beagle stays,
Lest he should baffle sounds too sweet to lose,
That even now are gliding with the dews.
How nobly he arrays

His robes for flight-his robes, the woven of songs,
Borrowed from starry spheres,-with each a muse
That, with her harmonies, maintains its dance
Celestial, and its circles bright prolongs.
Fair ever, but with warrior form and face,
He stands before the eye of each young grace
Beguiling the sweet passion from her cell,
And still subjecting beauty by the glance,
Which speaks his own subjection to a spell.
The eldest born of rapture, that makes Love,
At once submissive and the Conqueror.
He conquers but to bring deliverance,
And with deliverance light;-

To conquer, he has only to explore,—

And makes a permanent empire, but to spread,
Though speeding on with unobserving haste,—
A wing above the waste.

A single feather from his pinion shed,
A single beam of beauty from his eye,

Takes captive of the dim sleeping realm below,
Through eyes of truest worshippers, that straight
Bring shouts to welcome and bright flowers to
wreathe

His altars; and, as those, to life from death,
Plucked sudden, in their gratitude and faith
Deem him a god who wrought the miracle,-
So do they take him to their shrines, and vow
Their annual incense of sweet song and smell,
For him to whom their happiness they owe.
Thus goes he still from desert shore to shore,
Where life in darkness droops, where beauty errs,
Having no worshippers,

And lacking sympathy for the light!—The eye
That is the spirit of his wing, no more,
This progress once begun, can cease to soar,
Suffers eclipse, or sleeps!-

No more be furled

The wing,-that, from the first decreed to fly,
Must speed to daily conquests, deep and high,
Till no domain of dark unlighted keeps,
And all the realm of strife beneath the sky
Grows one, in beauty and peace for evermore,-
Soothed to eternal office of delight,

By these that wing the soul on its first flight,
For these are the great spirits that shape the
world!

"He does not come-he does not come," she murmured, as she stood contemplating the thick copse spreading before her, and formning the barrier which terminated the beautiful range of oaks which constituted the grove. How beautiful was the green and garniture of that little copse of wood. The leaves were thick, and the grass around lay folded over and over in bunches, with here and there a wild flower, gleaming from its green, and making of it a beautiful carpet of the richest and most various texture. A small tree rose from the centre of a clump around which a wild grape gadded luxuriantly; and, with an incoherent sense of what she saw, she lingered before the little cluster, seeming to survey that which, though it seemed to fix her eye, yet failed to fill her thought. Her mind wandered

And

her soul was far away; and the objects in her vision were far other than those which occupied her imagination. Things grew indistinct beneath her eye. The eye rather slept than saw. The musing spirit had given holiday to the ordinary senses, and took no heed of the forms that rose, and floated, or glided away, before them. In this way, the leaf detached made no impression upon the sight that was yet bent upon it; ehe saw not the bird, though it whirled, untroubled by a fear, in wanton circles around her head-and the black snake, with the rapidity of an arrow, darted over her path without arousing a single terror in the form that otherwise would have shivered at its mere appearance. yet, though thus indistinct were all things around her to the musing eye of the maiden, her eye was yet singularly fixed-fastened as it were, to a single spot-gathered and controlled by a single object, and glazed, apparently, beneath a curious fascination. Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes,-bright tangled leaves flaunting wide in glossiest green, with vines trailing over them, thickly decked with blue and crimson flowers. Her eye communed vacantly with these; fastened by a starlike shining glance-a subtle ray, that shot out from the circle of green leaves-seeming to be their very eye and sending out a lurid lustre that seemed to stream across the space between, and find its way into her own eyes. Very piercing and beautiful was that subtle brightness, of the sweetest, strangest power. And now the leaves quivered and seemned to float away, only to return, and the vines waved and swung around in fantastic mazes, unfolding ever-changing varieties of form and color to her gaze; but the star-like eye was ever steadfast, bright and gorgeous gleaming in their midst, and still fastened, with strange fondness, upon her own. How beautiful, with wondrous intensity, did it gleam, and dilate, growing larger and more lustrous with every ray which it sent forth. And her own glance became intense, fixed also; but with a dreaming sense that conjured up the wildest fancies, terribly beautiful, that took her soul away from her, and wrapt it about as with a spell. She would have fled, she would have flown; but she had not power to move. The will was wanting to her flight. She felt that she could have bent forward to pluck the gem-like thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it seemed to grow, and which it irradiated with its bright white gleam; but ever as she aimed to stretch forth her hand, and bend forward, she heard a rush of wings, and a shrill scream from the tree above ber-such a scrcatn as the mock-bird makes, when, angrily, it raises its dusky crest, and flaps its wings furiously against its slender sides. Such a screain seemed like a warning, and though yet unawakened to full consciousness, it startled her and forbade her effort. More than once in her survey of this strango object, had she heard that shrill note, and still had

it carried to her ear the same note of warning, and to her mind the same vague consciousness of an evil presence. But the star-like eye was yet upon her own-a small, bright eye, quick like that of a bird, now steady in its place, and observant seemingly only of hers, now darting forward with all the clustering leaves about it, and shooting up towards her, as if wooing her to seize. At another moment, riveted to the vine which lay around it, it would whirl round and round, dazzlingly bright and beautiful, even as a torch, waving hurriedly by night in the hands of some playful boy;-but, in all this time, the glance was never taken from her ownthere it grew, fixed-a very principle of light-and such a light-a subtle, burning, piercing, fascinating gleam, such as gathers in vapor above the old grave, and binds us as we look-shooting, darting directly into her eye, dazzling her gaze, defeating its sense of discrimination, and confusing strangely that of perception. She felt dizzy, for, as she looked, a cloud of colors, bright, gay, various colors, floated and hung like so much drapery around the sir gle object that had so secured her attention and spell-bound her feet. Her limbs felt momently more and more insecure-her blood grew cold, and she seemed to feel the gradual freeze of vein by vein, throughout her person. At that moment a rustling was heard in the branches of the tree beside her, and the bird, which had repeatedly uttered a single cry above her, as it were of warning, flew away from his station with a scream more piercing than ever. This movement had the effect, for which it really seemed intended, of bringing back to her a portion of the conEciousness she seemed so totally to have been deprived of before. She strove to move from before the beautiful but terrible presence, but for a while the strove in vain. The rich, star-like glance still riveted her own, and the subtle fascination kept her bound. The mental energies, however, with the moment of their greatest trial, now gathered suddenly to her aid; and, with a desperate effort, but with a feeling still of most annoying uncertainty and dread, the succeeded partially in the attempt, and threw her aims backwards, her hands grasping the neighboring tree, fceble, tottering, and depending upon it for that support which her own lin bs almost entirely denied her. With her movement, however, came the full development of the powerful spell and dreadful mystery before her. As her feet receded, though but a single pace, to the tree against which she Low rested, the audibly articulated ring, like that of a watch when wound up with the verge broken, announced the nature of that sple did yet dangerous presence, in the form of the monstrous rattlesnake, now but a few feet before her, lying coiled at the bottom of a beautiful shrub, with which, to her dreaming eye, many of its own glorious hues had become associated. She was, at length, conscious enough to perceive and to feel all her danger; but terror had denied her the strength necessary to fly from her dreadful enemy. There still the eye glared beautifully bright and piercing upon her own; and, seemingly in a spirit of sport, the insidious reptile slowly unwound himself from his coil, but only to gather himself up again into his muscular rings, his great flat head rising in the midst, and slowly nodding, as it were, towards her, the eye still peering deeply into her own;-the rattle still slightly ringing at intervals, and giving forth that paralysing sound, which, once heard, is remembered for ever. The reptile all this while appeared to be conscious of, and to sport with, while seeking to excite her terrors. Now, with his fint head, distended mouth, and curving neck, would it dart forward its long form towards her,—its fatal teeth, unfolding on