AMERICAN MEN OF; BETTERS * 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 BROWSING ROOM
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 y-2
 
 amcrican jEen of 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
 
 SImmcan Stn of Sletterg 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 
 
 WILLIAM P.jTRENT 
 
 or HISTORY is THB UXTVKBUTY or THZ SOUTH 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 I)i- liiUi-rsiDc press
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following are the chief sources on which I 
 have relied in the preparation of this biography : 
 
 1. About twenty pages of memoranda jotted 
 down by Mr. Simms, probably forming the com 
 mencement of the "elaborate autobiography" to 
 which Allibone refers. 
 
 2. About one hundred and seventy-five letters 
 addressed by Simms to Hayne, Beverley Tucker, 
 John J. Bockie, W. H. Ferris, W. Porcher Miles, 
 and others. 
 
 3. More than one thousand letters addressed to 
 Simms by correspondents from all parts of the 
 Union, covering well the period from 1845 to 
 1870. These letters were given to Mr. W. Haw 
 kins Ferris, of Brooklyn, N. Y., whose son and 
 namesake kindly placed them at my disposal. 
 
 4. Letters written to myself by personal friends 
 of Mr. Simms in answer to various questions. 
 
 5. Notes of conversations had with descendants 
 and friends of Mr. Simms.
 
 Vl PREFACE. 
 
 6. Biographical details extracted from Simms's 
 own writings, from magazines and newspapers, and 
 from other printed sources too numerous to men 
 tion. As the plan of this series excludes a fre 
 quent use of footnotes, reference has been made to 
 the above sources only when such reference seemed 
 to be specially important. 
 
 A word must be said with regard to those por 
 tions of this book which are concerned with Simms's 
 environment rather than with the romancer himself. 
 It may seem at first sight that I have too frequently 
 dropped the role of the biographer in order to as 
 sume that of the historian. This may be the case, 
 for a teacher of history is likely to seize every 
 chance to magnify his office. But I have an excuse 
 for my offense if offense it be in the fact that 
 Simms was a typical Southerner, and that it would 
 have been impossible to convey a full idea of his 
 character without constant reference to the history 
 of the Southern people during the first seven de 
 cades of the century. This history has been little 
 studied and still less understood, hence an appar 
 ently disproportionate fullness of treatment has 
 been required. It is not for me to say how far I 
 have succeeded in throwing light upon the subject, 
 or in treating it with fairness ; but I may say that
 
 PREFACE. ra 
 
 the extended account I have given of Simms's polit 
 ical career was introduced with no desire to rake 
 up dead issues or to say unpleasant things. I saw 
 no way by which a conscientious biographer of 
 Simms could avoid the mire of ante-bellum poli 
 tics, so I waded in with very little hope that I 
 should get through undraggled. 
 
 In conclusion, I must return my thanks to the 
 numerous persons who have kindly assisted me in 
 the preparation of this volume. It is impossible 
 to name all, but the following must be specially 
 mentioned: Mrs. Edward Roach, of Charleston, 
 and William Gilmore Simms, Esq., of Barn well, 
 S. C., children of Mr. Simms, who have given 
 every assistance in their power; Mrs. Paul H. 
 Hayne ; Dr. F. Peyre Porcher, Mr. Samuel Lord, 
 Mr. "W. Gibbes Whaley, Mr. Yates Snowden, of 
 Charleston; Miss Pinckney, of the Charleston Li 
 brary, and Miss E. L. McCrady for researches 
 made in the same; Professor George F. Holmes, 
 of the University of Virginia; Hon. W. Porcher 
 Miles, of Louisiana; Mr. Charles W. Coleman, 
 of Williamsburg, Va. ; Mrs. John J. Bockie and 
 Mr. W. H. Ferris, of Brooklyn, N. Y. ; the author 
 ities of the Virginia State Library, the Peabody 
 Library, and the Congressional Library, especially 
 Mr. David Huteheson of the latter; and lastly
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 General James Grant Wilson, of New York, for 
 whose unsolicited and unstinted help my warmest 
 thanks are due. 
 
 W. P. TRENT. 
 
 SEWANEE, TENH., November 10, 1891. 
 
 NOTE. I find that in the footnote on page 261 I have been 
 misled into doing injustice to Col. G. H. Stevens, who devised the 
 iron-clad battery at Cummings Point without suggestion from Mr. 
 Simms. 
 
 SKWANEE, TUNS., August 21, 1893.
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY YEARS. 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS was born at Charles 
 ton, South Carolina, on the 17th of April, 1806. 
 His father, who bore the same name, emigrated to 
 Charleston shortly after the Revolution, from the 
 little town of Larne, in the north of Ireland. He 
 was a mere youth at the time of his coming; and 
 he may have accompanied some one of his bro 
 thers, three of whom are known to have sought 
 homes in the new world. Of these Matthew and 
 Eli settled in Tennessee, where they lived long 
 lives and left descendants. James, the third 
 brother, settled in Lancaster District, South Car 
 olina, and was the only one of his uncles, indeed 
 of his father's kinsmen, that the subject of these 
 pages ever saw. He made some impression upon 
 his young nephew by his extreme ugliness, his 
 eternal smiles, and his constant kindness, from 
 which characteristics, and from other facts, it may 
 be inferred that he was an old bachelor. 
 
 Little is known of the early life of William Gil-
 
 2 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 more Simms the elder. By the beginning of this 
 century he had engaged in some mercantile pursuit 
 that was sufficiently remunerative to allow him to 
 think of marriage; and we accordingly find in 
 the " Times " of Charleston, for Friday evening, 
 June 1, 1804, the following brief notice : 
 
 "Married, last evening, by the Rev. Mr. Mal- 
 comson, Mr. William Simms, merchant, to Miss 
 Harriet Singleton, both of this place." 
 
 There was some disparity between the ages of 
 the bride and groom, for the former was only nine 
 teen and the latter could not have been far from 
 forty-two. To her nineteen years Miss Singleton 
 added three Christian names, Harriet Ann Au 
 gusta. A badly executed portrait, which her son 
 remembered seeing in his youth, represented her as 
 a fair young girl of about seventeen, with sweet 
 and expressive eyes, and an artless, gentle counte 
 nance. She had a fine ear for music, which was 
 doubtless a great source of delight to her husband, 
 who could not only sing, but also improvise the 
 songs he sang. 
 
 Not much is known of her family, save that she 
 was the only child of a Mr. John Singleton, who 
 had been dead five years at the time of her mar 
 riage. There were two seemingly distinct families 
 of Singletons in Charleston, and, curiously enough, 
 two Harriet Singletons, daughters of two John 
 Singletons, were married in that city during the 
 month of May, 1804. The Singletons with whom 
 we have to deal were a respectable family, that had
 
 EARLY TEARS. 3 
 
 removed from Virginia to Carolina some time be 
 fore the Revolution. One tombstone in the grave 
 yard of old St. Michael's preserves the memory of 
 John Singleton, of his daughter, and of his first 
 grandchild; and perhaps the curious epitaphs, in 
 prose and verse, that adorn it are due to the affec 
 tion, if not to the genius, of his Scotch-Irish son- 
 in-law. 
 
 John Singleton left a widow, whose maiden name 
 has escaped discovery. How long she remained a 
 widow is equally a matter of doubt; but it is cer 
 tain that she eventually married a Mr. Gates, and 
 that as his wife, or widow, she displayed a care 
 and affection for her little grandson which shall be 
 duly commemorated in this chapter. 
 
 Of the personal characteristics of Mr. Simms 
 the elder there will be occasion to speak hereafter ; 
 but the few events that are known of his married 
 life must be noted here with a brevity proportioned 
 to their sadness. Early in 1805, a first son was 
 born to him, and christened John. In the fol 
 lowing spring, as we have seen, came the boy who 
 was to bear and make honorable his father's name. 
 But in the autumn of this year a premonition of 
 the disasters impending upon the family came in 
 the death of the infant John. Then the father's 
 business affairs went wrong, ending in bankruptcy, 1 
 just at the time that his wife died, along with her 
 third child (January 29, 1808). The merry and 
 
 1 The court records of Charleston have been searched in vain 
 for information on this point.
 
 4 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 stalwart man ceased making songs and epigrams, 
 and bent beneath these cruel blows. In one week 
 his hair became white, and he resolved to fly from 
 a city which his imagination ever afterward pic 
 tured as "a place of tombs." He mounted his 
 horse, and, turning his face toward Tennessee, be 
 gan a series of wanderings destined to have no little 
 effect upon the imagination of the son he had left 
 behind him. 
 
 This motherless and almost fatherless boy found 
 the sympathy of the one and the protection of the 
 other in the guardianship of his grandmother. 
 Although there are hints here and there of some 
 property left him by his mother, this could not 
 have been available at first, for there is abundant 
 testimony to the poverty of the little household. 
 They managed to live, but soon the question of the 
 boy's education presented itself. The wandering 
 father was in no position to help, and the child al 
 ready showed signs of precocity ; a free school, bad 
 as such things then were, must be tried. At the 
 age of six, therefore, his grandmother, with many 
 misgivings, we may imagine, entered him at one of 
 these so-called schools, and for two years the exper 
 iment was continued. One year seems to have 
 been fairly employed ; but that the common school 
 system, as it then existed in South Carolina, was 
 wretched, the following memoranda, made by Mr. 
 Simms in mature life, abundantly prove : 
 
 "With the exception of one [of the schools] I 
 was an example of their utter worthlessness. They
 
 EABLY YEARS. 
 
 taught me little or nothing. The teachers were 
 generally worthless in morals, and as ignorant as 
 worthless. One old Irishman, during one year, 
 taught me to spell, read tolerably, and write a 
 pretty good hand. He was the best, and he knew 
 little. Not one of them could teach me arithmetic. 
 There was no supervision of the masters or com 
 missioners worth a doit. The teachers, in some 
 cases, never came to the school for three days in 
 the week. We boys then thought these the best. 
 When they did come, they were in a hurry to get 
 away. The boys did nothing. Never attempted 
 to work out a rule in arithmetic, but put false 
 proofs which were never discovered. The master 
 had a key, and was satisfied with the figures in the 
 proof. He knew as little as the boys. The whole 
 system, when I was a boy, was worthless and 
 scoundrelly." 
 
 These emphatic words suggest a train of unpleas 
 ant reflections. The people of South Carolina, and 
 of the South in general, were not insensible to the 
 advantages of a good educational system. How 
 ever inefficient their early schools and colleges were, 
 the idea that education and culture were desirable 
 things was always present in the minds of thought 
 ful men. But it is to be feared that few of these 
 thoughtful men saw the necessity for the establish 
 ment of a system of schools which should reach 
 high and low alike, which should tend to establish 
 a thrifty middle class, and which, finally, should 
 enlarge the sympathies and widen the views of the
 
 6 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 dominant aristocracy. The free or common schools 
 were tacitly, or expressly, understood to be the 
 schools of the poor, and schools for the poor alone 
 will always be poor schools. The upper classes 
 had private tutors, private schools, state colleges, 
 New England colleges, and finally European schools 
 and universities, to which their sons could be sent; 
 and these advantages were constantly made use of. 
 But while rich young Carolinians were astonishing 
 sober-minded New England students with their lav 
 ish waste of money and time, many a poor lad in 
 the proud city of Charleston was being doomed to 
 a useless, or at best unsatisfying and chequered, 
 career for want of decent schooling and a helping 
 hand. 
 
 Returning now to our half-Irish boy and his 
 wholly Irish teacher, it may be remarked that the 
 latter' s arithmetical deficiencies seem to have been 
 communicated to his pupil in no slight degree ; for 
 in the very memoranda that have just been quoted, 
 Mr. Simms estimates the period of his school life ' 
 at four years, equally divided between free and 
 private schools, and then in almost the next sen- J 
 tence tells us that his "schooling was at private , 
 schools four years out of the six that " he "went to 
 school at all." Figures were generally small things 
 to Southerners of the old regime, and perhaps Mr. 
 Simms's arithmetical vagaries never caused him 
 any great trouble. Unfortunately, they have given 
 some trouble to his biographer.
 
 EARLY YEARS. 
 
 1 
 
 But the reading and writing lessons were em- 
 phatically successful. The boy became an om 
 nivorous reader, and as for his writings, one has 
 only to transfer the epithet to Time, which has de 
 voured them all, numerous verses though they 
 were. From the age of eight, when he employed 
 his precocious talents in celebrating the victories 
 gained by his countrymen in their second war with 
 Great Britain, to the publication of his first little 
 volume in 1825, his pen was rarely idle, and his 
 brain never. When he could not write poetry, he 
 read it ; and in all probability, Byron and Scott and 
 Moore had nowhere a more devoted admirer than 
 this little Charleston boy. There is no way of de 
 termining what his own stock of books was ; but the 
 Charleston Library was open to him, and in those 
 days of direct communication with England, 
 Charleston was well supplied with English books. 
 Although trash was accessible then as now, his 
 tastes seem to have led him along right lines of 
 reading. "I used to glow and shiver in turn," he 
 said once to Paul Hayne, "over 'The Pilgrim's 
 Progress; ' and Moses's adventures, in 'The Vicar 
 of Wakefield,' threw me into paroxysms of laugh 
 ter." Years afterward the recollection of his 
 youthful delight over the pages of Bunyan fur 
 nished him with material for one of the most touch 
 ing scenes in the whole range of his romances. 
 
 In the mean time the common schools had been 
 abandoned, and private schools tried for at least 
 two years. These may have been better than the
 
 8 WILLIAM GILMO'EE SIMMS. 
 
 free schools, but they did very little for the boy. 
 He learned no Latin, and late in life was heard to 
 say that he had never read through an English 
 grammar. Perhaps his sickly childhood may ac 
 count in part for his slight progress ; but, whatever 
 the cause, it is evident that school training must 
 count as a very small factor in his development. 
 
 Formative influences, however, were not lacking. 
 The grandmother was a shrewd woman, with a stock 
 of stories she was never tired of telling, or the boy 
 of hearing. It was but little more than a gener 
 ation since Charleston and Carolina had experi 
 enced the horrors of a war which was all the more 
 terrible because it was, in the main, a civil war. 
 Mrs. Gates had been a child at the time, but she 
 had an active memory, which must have been quick 
 ened by reports of contemporary victories over the 
 ancient enemy. A flood of recollections was doubt 
 less unlocked when her grandson rushed in, as we 
 may imagine he did, one January evening, eager 
 to tell all he had heard about sailing-master Bas 
 set's brave defense of the schooner Alligator 
 against a British frigate. Fighting at their very 
 door must have called up the often told story of 
 how her father fought "day and night at the lines 
 of Charleston, armed with the rifle which past ex 
 perience had rendered a fatal implement in his 
 hands;" of how he had sent his wife and child 
 away from the city; of the wife's anxiety, and her 
 final determination to share her husband's peril; 
 of how, "in an open row-boat, she descends Cooper
 
 EAELY YEARS. 9 
 
 Eiver from its sources, and, with muffled oars, 
 passes, at midnight, through the midst of a fear 
 ful cannonade, through the thronging barges of the 
 British." 
 
 Nor was Mrs. Gates confined to exciting stories 
 of war time. Naturally superstitious, she had col 
 lected a large stock of weird and ghastly tales, 
 which she was wont to repeat to her imaginative 
 grandson, little fancying that he would one day put 
 them to very good use. But the boy's curiosity 
 could not have been confined to the deeds of his 
 patriotic ancestors, or to the supernatural experi 
 ences of the heroes of his grandmother's tales. He 
 must often have asked and dreamed about the fa 
 ther whose infrequent letters told of perils and pri 
 vations endured in warfare with the murderous 
 Creeks. He must have listened eagerly while his 
 grandmother told of the family troubles and the 
 suddenly whitened hair ; but just where that father 
 was now, and when he would come to see his little 
 son, were questions that Mrs. Gates could not an 
 swer, and they were the most important questions 
 of all to a boy who was about to exchange the free 
 dom of home for the confining precincts of a drug 
 gist's shop. 
 
 Exactly when Mrs. Gates decided that further 
 schooling was impracticable cannot be determined. 
 Nor are the reasons known which prompted her to 
 apprentice her grandson to a druggist, in the hope 
 that he might one day become a physician. It is 
 not even known what master he served, or how
 
 10 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 long the apprenticeship lasted. But, whatever his 
 condition, his love of reading and his desire for self - 
 improvement could not be thwarted. During the 
 day he had little opportunity either to read poetry 
 or to write it, and his grandmother did not approve 
 of late hours or a waste of candles. But the end 
 justified the means with the young student, and de 
 ception was resorted to. He brought home a large 
 box, and put his candle inside. His head and book 
 followed the candle, and such rays of light as 
 passed these obstacles were dissipated in the rear 
 of the room. Mrs. Gates would see no light shin 
 ing through the crevices in the door, and could 
 retire in peace. 
 
 Books seem to have been his chief companions 
 during these early years. Protracted periods of 
 illness, and the consequent restraint exercised by 
 his grandmother, developed, according to his own 
 confession, a constitutional timidity, which must 
 have made him more and more eager to take refuge 
 with them. This timidity was bravely shaken off 
 in later years; nor did it prevent him from ex 
 ploring, in his boat, the beautiful harbor that is 
 still Charleston's pride. But he never learned to 
 swim, and his chief pleasure was to lie on the sands 
 at evening, looking out upon the ocean, listening to 
 its mysterious sounds, and longing to take a voyage 
 that would carry him out of sight of land. He did 
 not wish, he says in a manuscript note, to visit for 
 eign lands and see strange sights ; he wished to get 
 rid of the land entirely, to be alone with the sea,
 
 EARLY YEARS. 11 
 
 to commune with it as with a mysterious being, 
 that had affected his imagination more powerfully 
 than had anything else in nature. This sense of 
 the weird power of the sea must have been enhanced 
 by the peculiar features of the Charleston land 
 scape, the flat stretch of country unbroken by 
 hills, the swamps over which the tide ebbed and 
 flowed, the venerable trees drooping with gray 
 moss. Long into manhood this undefinable influ 
 ence of the sea kept its hold upon his imagination, 
 and to it may be traced the equally undefinable 
 conceptions that underlay his first elaborate poem, 
 "Atalantis." 
 
 About this period an event occurred which de 
 serves a passing notice. The elder Simms, after 
 going through many adventures, had settled down 
 in what was then the territory of Mississippi. His 
 prospects had brightened, and he began to think 
 of the son whom he had not seen for eight years. 
 Some friends, who were about to make a journey 
 to Charleston, were commissioned to bring the boy 
 back with them. According to a tradition in the 
 family, and to the biographical sketch given in 
 "Appleton's New American Cyclopaedia, "the data 
 for which evidently came from Simms himself, 
 these emissaries caught him in the streets, and, on 
 his refusing to go with them, would have applied 
 force, had not his grandmother, getting wind of the 
 affair, brought the matter into court. There it was 
 determined to give the boy his choice, whether he 
 would go or stay. He decided to remain with his
 
 12 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 grandmother. This is the story, and thus far it 
 has been impossible to throw further light upon it. 
 The case was not reported, at least old members of 
 the Charleston bar have never heard of it ; and if 
 there be a newspaper account, it has escaped notice. 
 
 The effect upon the elder Simms was to increase 
 his desire to see his son. Accordingly, in 1816 or 
 1817, he came to Charleston for the first time since 
 his self-enforced banishment. Recognizing the 
 attachment existing between Mrs. Gates and her 
 grandson, he forebore to press the question of a re 
 moval to Mississippi ; but before he himself went 
 back, he lingered long enough to make a great im 
 pression upon his namesake. His affection cheered 
 the lonely boy, and his little poems and impromptu 
 epigrams stimulated a poetic faculty already in use, 
 and possibly produced a shy confession of the box 
 and candle experiment, and an exposure of the verses 
 written under so great difficulties. But his father's 
 tales of adventure were more fascinating than his 
 own or his father's poetry, even when the latter was 
 addressed to himself. They would have been in 
 teresting told at second hand, but told by the hero 
 himself, in his impressive Irish manner, they carried 
 the boy away, and had a profound influence upon 
 his future career. To the day of his death his 
 chief interest and his chief power were to lie in de 
 scriptions of hairbreadth adventures, of rough bor 
 der-life, and of cruel Indian or partisan warfare. 
 
 The elder Simms was now a little upwards of 
 fifty years old, a vigorous man over six feet high,
 
 EARLY TEARS. 13 
 
 with a florid complexion and snow-white hair. 
 According to his son, he was not, strictly speak 
 ing, an educated man, but he was a great reader 
 and a keen observer, and had a sense for humor, 
 combined with a melancholy and at times poetic 
 temperament. On first settling in Tennessee he 
 had become a friend and admirer of that idol of the 
 sturdy backwoodsmen, Andrew Jackson. When 
 volunteers were called for after the brutal storming 
 of Fort Mimms (August 30, 1813) by the half- 
 breed Weathersford and his Creek warriors, he 
 had at once followed his hero to the field, enlisting 
 in General John Coffee's brigade of Tennessee 
 mounted gun men. What his commission was is 
 not known. He was probably at the battles of Tal- 
 lahatchie and Tohopeka, and was certainly at New 
 Orleans. The horrors of Florida warfare did not 
 daunt him any more than the questionableness of 
 his authority to make the expedition daunted Jack 
 son ; and he left Mississippi (for this was in 1818, 
 two years after his visit to Charleston) to follow his 
 old chieftain. Of course, such a round of experi 
 ences furnished many tales of daring and of danger. 
 The man who had killed his own horse for food, and 
 lived on it for seven days, was no ordinary hero in 
 the eyes of his son. 
 
 But this pleasant visit soon ended, and before 
 long the father was out in Florida with Jackson, 
 while the young druggist's apprentice was plying 
 his uncongenial trade. We do not know how the 
 years passed, but it is certain that he continued to
 
 14 WILLIAM GILNOEE SIMMS. 
 
 read and to write verses, some of which were ad 
 judged good enough to be admitted into the daily 
 newspapers. He even attempted a tragedy upon 
 the time-honored subject of Roderick, the last of 
 the Goths, but it was not until later that he mus 
 tered courage enough to submit it to a manager. 
 
 So matters went on until he was eighteen, when 
 his apprenticeship probably ceased. The irksome- 
 ness of his proposed profession, medicine, was ap 
 parent, and he resolved to study law. Perhaps by 
 this time his own and his grandmother's circum 
 stances were better, and possibly his father could 
 now contribute something to his support. He en 
 tered the law office of Mr. Charles R. Carroll, a 
 friend not greatly older than himself, and there he 
 continued for a while, reading Blackstone and 
 writing Byronic odes whenever important person 
 ages like Lafayette honored Charleston with a 
 visit. 
 
 But about this time (the close of 1824 or the 
 beginning of 1825), he received an invitation to 
 visit his father in the Southwest. He accordingly 
 embarked on a small trading vessel, and after some 
 trouble with a mutinous crew reached New Or 
 leans in safety. A long and perilous journey lay 
 before him, and he may have wished himself back 
 in Charleston, where there were at least two persons 
 who were thinking of him, his grandmother and 
 a certain young lady, Miss Anna Malcolm Giles 
 by name, who had promised to be his wife. But 
 the journey had to be made, and it was made, part
 
 EAELY YEAES. 15 
 
 probably by boat and the rest on horseback. He 
 found his father at his plantation near Georgeville, 
 Mississippi, just at the time when the active old 
 man had returned from a trip of three hundred 
 miles into the heart of the Indian country. 
 
 Simms must have remained several months; for 
 so long a journey demanded a proportionate visit 
 in those days of slow traveling. He rode with his 
 father from one small settlement to another, accept 
 ing the lavish hospitality offered by the backwoods 
 men and narrowly observing their manners. He 
 visited both the Creek and Cherokee "Nations," 
 and wrote poems on Indian subjects during his vis 
 its. Twenty years later, when addressing the stu 
 dents of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, 
 he told them that he had once ridden over that 
 very spot when the silence of the primeval forest 
 was only broken by the fall of his horse's feet and 
 the howl of the distant wolf. On one occasion he 
 stopped at noon to rest, and when he awoke his 
 father showed him that his head had been pillowed 
 on a lonely grave. A rudely carved cross sug 
 gested to the imaginative boy that this must be the 
 grave of one of De Soto's followers, a notion which 
 his father combated, but which nevertheless fur 
 nished material for a poem. 
 
 The influence of these journeys upon young 
 Simms cannot be overestimated. They familiar 
 ized him with the life of a peculiar people, and en 
 abled him in after years to describe that life as no 
 other writer has done, or in all probability will
 
 16 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 do. The broken-down aristocrat from the older 
 States, planting his first crop of cotton with the aid 
 of lazy slaves and still lazier Indians; the hardy 
 North Carolina mountaineer, building a cabin simi 
 lar to the one left behind, and still supporting him 
 self and family on what his rifle could bring down ; 
 the half-breed, as slimy as the swamp in which he 
 took up his abode; the flashy gambler compelled 
 to fly from Mobile or New Orleans, and amusing 
 himself while in hiding by practicing on the simple- 
 shrewd inhabitants of a cross-roads settlement ; the 
 rascally pettifogger ; the pompous and absurd jus 
 tice of the peace ; the Yankee peddler ; the Metho 
 dist circuit rider; and, finally, the hearty, sensible 
 woodsman, now fighting like a tiger, and now as 
 gentle as a lamb, all these he rode with, ate with, 
 and slept with, and they live yet in his pages. 
 We can only regret that he never finished certain 
 "Sketches of Personal Adventure," a few frag 
 ments of which still exist in manuscript. 
 
 Only one incident of this visit has been recorded 
 in detail by Simms himself. On one of their long 
 rides his father began to urge him to take up his 
 abode in the new and fruitful country they were 
 then traversing. Simms declared his purpose of 
 returning to Carolina, marrying his sweetheart and 
 beginning the practice of law. Whereupon his 
 father exclaimed : 
 
 " Return to Charleston ! Why should you re 
 turn to Charleston, where you can never succeed 
 in any profession, where you need what you have
 
 EARLY YEAES. 17 
 
 no t, friends, family, and fortune; and without 
 these your whole life, unless some happy accident 
 should favor you, will be a mere apprenticeship, 
 a hopeless drudging after bread. Ho 1 do not 
 think of it. Stay here. Study your profession 
 here, and pursue it with the energy and talent 
 which you possess, and I will guarantee you a 
 future, and in ten years a seat in Congress. Do 
 not think of Charleston. Whatever your talents, 
 they will there be poured out like water on the 
 sands. Charleston! I know it only as a place of 
 
 tombs." 1 
 
 The son listened to this appeal with respect, but 
 it did not move him. He had resolved to cast in 
 his lot with his native State, and neither this nor 
 any subsequent proposal could change his determi 
 nation. Thirty years later he regretted that he 
 had not remained with his father, for reasons which 
 will become apparent as this narrative proceeds. 
 Every prediction that the older man made came 
 true; and if the younger had yielded, the success 
 that was foreshadowed would, in all probability, 
 have been attained. But it may be doubted 
 whether a lucrative practice or a seat in Congress 
 would ever have satisfied a man who had it in him 
 to make the heroic fight to lead the higher life that 
 Simms afterwards made. Waiving all question 
 of the amount or the permanence of his literary 
 fame, it may still be believed that he acted wisely 
 in rejecting his father's proposals. The life of the 
 i From Simms' s memoranda.
 
 18 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 writer and scholar is a noble life, and the man who 
 feels in himself the desire and the power to lead it 
 is right in disregarding all worldly allurements and 
 distractions, although in the end it be proved that 
 he has merely lived his life, without leaving be 
 hind a single line that posterity will care to pre 
 serve. It was with some perception of this truth, 
 although his ostensible purpose was to practice law, 
 that young Simms took his lonely journey back to 
 the seaboard and to civilization.
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 
 
 THERE were doubtless other visions than those of 
 literary fame that hovered before the eyes of our 
 young traveler as he approached the city of his 
 birth after so long an absence. The midsummer of 
 1825 was close at hand, and, whether he made his 
 journey by land or sea, he must have been glad to 
 think of the rest and healthful security promised 
 by the breeze-swept city. Then, too, the regrets 
 occasioned by the parting with his father must have 
 been swallowed up by the delight he took in pictur 
 ing the welcome he would receive from his sweet 
 heart and from his old grandmother. 
 
 But these could not have been the only attrac 
 tions that Charleston exercised upon him. It 
 promised him a better chance to lead a literary 
 life than the rough border country he had just 
 quitted; it promised him sight and touch of the 
 two women he loved ; but more than all, it drew 
 him on by the peculiar fascination which alone, 
 perhaps, of Southern cities it possesses for sons and 
 strangers alike. He knew that he was a poor and 
 friendless boy, that the men and women who made 
 Charleston what it really was did not know him
 
 20 WILLIAM GILNOEE SIMMS. 
 
 and did not want to know him; he knew that he 
 and his class were not so much looked upon with 
 disfavor as not looked upon at all; he knew that 
 what his father had said of Charlestonian pride and 
 narrowness was every word true ; and yet he was 
 proud of being a Charlestonian. They all are; 
 every man, woman, and child born within its lim 
 its is proud of the city, and would hardly ex 
 change a life of poverty in its narrow streets for 
 any assurance of wealth or consideration abroad. 
 "See Charleston, and live to envy her people" 
 is the way they have improved upon the Italian 
 proverb. 
 
 It must not be imagined that Simms and the 
 more intellectual men of his class, together with 
 a few far-sighted members of the aristocracy, had 
 not perceived, more or less clearly, that there was 
 much to be reprehended and feared for in the so 
 cial structure of the city they nevertheless loved. 
 They doubtless rebelled often enough in their 
 secret hearts against the domination of a blind, 
 exclusive, and thoughtless aristocracy. The drug 
 gist's apprentice, whose soul had been fired by the 
 strains of Byron inciting the Greeks to throw off 
 their chains, could not but have felt an irresistible 
 desire to burst the social chains that fettered him 
 self ; could not but have formed a determination 
 one day to push his way, by the force of his talents 
 and the greatness of his achievements, into the in 
 nermost circles of his formal and exclusive city. 
 But just as the barbarian Goth was overawed by
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 21 
 
 the majesty and mystery of the Eternal City, be 
 fore which he lay encamped, so the cold stateliness 
 and silent pride of the Carolinian metropolis cast a 
 spell upon the rash spirits that yearned for change. 
 Into the nature of this spell and its workings we 
 must now briefly inquire, ^n other words, we must 
 consider Simms's environment before we attempt 
 to follow his career as a man and a writer. 
 Without a knowledge of this environment we 
 should be constantly tempted to be unjust to him ; 
 in fact, we should hardly understand him at all. 
 But as it is obvious that this environment includes 
 not only Charleston and Carolina, but the whole 
 South, for all Southern men were subjected to very 
 much the same influences, it is equally obvious that 
 we have entered upon a formidable task, one for 
 which a whole volume would hardly be adequate, 
 much less a few pages. 
 
 The population of Charleston was estimated by 
 a census of 1824 at slightly under twenty-eight 
 thousand. Over half of these were slaves and 
 free persons of color; and if the importance of 
 the city had depended upon its white inhabitants 
 merely, that importance would have been slight. 
 Even its commerce would hardly have entitled it to 
 any great respect; for its shipping, though still 
 considerable, no longer sufficed to give the town 
 the distinction it had enjoyed as a prosperous port 
 in the days before the Revolution. Baltimore had 
 already passed it in the race for population and 
 wealth; and at the mouth of the Mississippi a city
 
 22 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 had sprung up which in size, wealth, and even in 
 picturesque interest threatened to eclipse its fame. 
 
 But if the city had sunk in the scale of impor 
 tance, so had the State, and so had the proud 
 mother of States, Virginia. Not long since, South 
 ern statesmen had dreamed that wealth and popu 
 lation would steadily flow south and keep that sec 
 tion ever in the van of progress and political power. 
 Now the calm observer could see that so far from 
 this being the case, the South had really lost 
 ground, and was losing it every day. Nor would 
 he have failed to reflect with sorrow that this 
 lost ground could never be recovered by the bold 
 schemes of politicians, or by the ostrich policy of 
 blinding the eyes to the true state of the case. But 
 calm observers are rare everywhere, and they are 
 especially rare in a conservative aristocracy. And 
 yet it did not take much observation to see that in 
 wealth and enterprise, and all that goes to make up 
 a material civilization, the Northern States, with 
 their system of free labor, had left the slaveholding 
 States far behind ; nor did it require much histor 
 ical knowledge to infer that before long the centres 
 of wealth and enterprise would become the centres 
 of political power and the centres of culture as well. 
 
 But although the Southern States were thus 
 steadily receding from the position they occupied 
 when Washington and Jefferson and Henry and 
 Marion and Rutledge were their representative 
 men, and although for the next forty years the 
 chief interest attaching to their history is th,e
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 23 
 
 mournful interest arising from a contemplation of 
 the evils that flowed from an unsound social and 
 political system, nevertheless there will be found, 
 in their literary, social, and economic history dur 
 ing this period, much that possesses a picturesque 
 charm, much that appeals to the deepest sympathies 
 of our nature, and finally, much that illustrates the 
 working of the great forces that underlie and con 
 trol the development of a people. 
 
 Now what is true in this regard of the Southern 
 States in general is preeminently true of the city of 
 Charleston. What Boston has been to New Eng 
 land that has Charleston been to South Carolina, 
 one may almost say, to the Southern States. In 
 deed, it would be nearer the mark, if one may com 
 pare small things with great, to say that Charleston 
 is to South Carolina as London is to England. 
 Just as English country gentlemen have for gener 
 ations gone up to London for the season, so have 
 the Carolina planters made their annual migration 
 to Charleston. Those who do so no longer have 
 only changed their habit with their change of 
 fortune. And just as London has been the lit 
 erary, social, and political centre of England, 
 so has Charleston, since its founding, been the 
 literary, social, and political centre of South Caro 
 lina. 1 
 
 Nay, it is to be feared that to most ante-bellum 
 
 1 These and the following remarks are more true of the " low 
 country " than of the " up country," but they are not entirely in 
 applicable to the latter.
 
 24 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 Carolinians, Charleston was the centre of the uni 
 verse. They swore by St. Michael's Church, b} 
 the statue of Pitt, by the Orphan House, and by 
 the old Broad Street Theatre. They were proud 
 of their Library, of their Battery, of their beautiful 
 harbor. If a stranger remarked on the narrow 
 ness of many of their streets, they dilated on their 
 good system of drainage, on their salubrious sea 
 breezes, and on the fact that many invalids from 
 the West India Islands came to Charleston to spend 
 the summer months. If it was hinted that the so- 
 called College, recently founded in a part of the old 
 barracks, was in reality a mere academy, they gen 
 erally contrived to shift the subject to their two 
 banks, their sixteen churches, their Literary and 
 Philosophical Society, and their three daily news 
 papers. If the lack of a good market was noted, 
 it was courteously explained that nearly every 
 Charleston gentleman owned - a plantation from 
 which he was in the habit of getting frequent sup 
 plies. Should the philanthropic stranger have 
 pointed out that this bore hardly on the poorer 
 classes, whose interests, indeed, seemed in few re 
 spects to have been considered, his remarks would 
 have elicited some well-bred commonplace or an 
 equally well-bred silence. But should he have 
 gone on to point out that the frequency of incen 
 diary fires indicated a smouldering discontent 
 among the slaves, which the strictness of the pa 
 trol kept up must necessarily increase, the silence 
 would have become ominous, unless, indeed, some
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 25 
 
 sharp retort gave him to understand that he was 
 treading on dangerous ground. 
 
 But although the Charlestonian had many ob 
 jects of civic pride to point out to visitors , although 
 he could dilate on the sombre beauty of the land 
 scape, and grow enthusiastic over many a live oak 
 almost as stately and venerable as his own family 
 tree; although Sullivan's Island lay across the blue 
 waves of the harbor ever ready to remind him of 
 Moultrie and the glorious days of '76; neverthe 
 less it was the men Charleston had produced and 
 was producing that furnished the most grateful ma 
 terial for his song of praise. And it was these men 
 whom youths like Simms wondered at and envied, 
 and into whose society they longed to be admitted. 
 
 Very stately gentlemen they were, those distin 
 guished Charlestonians. Courtesy sat upon them 
 like a well-fitting garment, albeit they preserved an 
 air of coldness and reserve, reminding one of their 
 unsociable houses which rose behind walls shutting 
 in beautiful gardens, which it would have been a 
 sacrilege for the public to enjoy. Among their 
 number there were not a few who would have been 
 distinguished for their classical attainments even in 
 a European capital, men who, in the words of 
 one of their descendants, 1 " looked upon literature 
 as the choice recreation of gentlemen, as something 
 fair and good, to be courted in a dainty, amateur 
 fashion, and illustrated by apropos quotations from 
 Lucretius, Virgil, or Horace." 
 1 Paul Hayne.
 
 26 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 Others there were who, though equally stately, 
 cared less for the classics than for the pedigree of 
 the horses that were to run next February over the 
 Washington course. Political races are not al 
 luded to here, but the all-exciting Charleston races, 
 the event of the year, to which everybody went, 
 clergymen and lawyers; judges, who would have 
 been trying cases had the court-house doors dared 
 to stand open ; rural members of the Episcopal Con 
 vention, which met in Race Week that it might be 
 sure of a quorum, the carnival of the year, at 
 tended by gentlemen in buckskin breeches and top 
 boots, and by ladies attired in every fashion, riding 
 in coaches of every style. Perhaps these gentlemen 
 of the South Carolina Jockey Club, who sat down 
 to a stately dinner on the Wednesday of Race 
 Week, and danced a stately measure at their ball 
 on the Friday of the same, were more admired and 
 envied by young outsiders than the distinguished 
 classicists mentioned above. 
 
 But the mention of the Charleston races brings 
 up the memory of the poet who celebrated them, 
 William Crafts, for many years literary dictator of 
 Charleston, whose "Raciad" is now wellnigh for 
 gotten, but who will deserve further notice in 
 another place. And the mention of Crafts recalls 
 the name of Charleston's next literary light, the 
 learned and just-not-great Legare, who criticised 
 his predecessor in no gentle manner in the pages of 
 the " Southern Review." With Legare comes the 
 ablest lawyer of his State, James Louis Petigru,
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 27 
 
 now, in 1825, a young man of high promise and 
 some little performance. Others of greater age 
 and achievements also pass before us. First, 
 Stephen Elliott, senior, perhaps the most public- 
 spirited citizen of his day, first president of the 
 State Bank, founder of the Literary and Philo 
 sophical Society, first professor of natural history 
 and botany in the Medical College he helped to 
 establish at Charleston, author of a "Botany of 
 South Carolina and Georgia," advocate of free 
 schools, and founder and contributor to the famous, 
 if short-lived, "Southern Review." By his side 
 stands the Eight Reverend John England, Roman 
 Catholic Bishop of Charleston, beloved by Protes 
 tants and Catholics alike, founder of seminaries 
 and papers, courageous opponent of dueling, pro 
 moter of classical learning, and a perfect hero in 
 times of pestilence and public distress. Beside 
 these names others shine out with a milder lustre : 
 Joel R. Poinsett, Thomas Smith Grimke, a heretic 
 in the matter of the classics, Charles Eraser, the 
 friend of Allston, who has already left the bar 
 that he may paint miniatures in peace, and the 
 Rev. John Bachman, soon to obtain distinction as 
 a naturalist and a fellow-laborer with Audubon. 
 A more conspicuous figure than any of these is 
 Robert Young Hayne, Webster's future opponent, 
 and last but not least, connecting the present with 
 the past, is Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, patriot 
 and statesman, now within a few weeks of his death. 
 Certainly such a place and such men must have
 
 28 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 exercised a fascination upon an imaginative youth 
 like Simms. There was, and is, something unique 
 about the town, an old-world look, an air of con 
 scious individuality such as aged men wear who 
 have been through stirring scenes. Here was no 
 thing new, no mushroom growth. Along these 
 narrow streets men like Marion and Rutledge and 
 Sumter and Gadsden had walked, and along them 
 their descendants were walking in that year of our 
 Lord, eighteen hundred and twenty-five. Turn 
 where you would, you were reminded of the past, 
 not of the Revolution merely, but of the stately 
 colonial days anterior. Had not the Reverend 
 Commissary Alexander Garden preached in St. 
 Philip's Church for thirty-four years, and had he 
 not cited the famous George Whitefield before the 
 ecclesiastical court of the same parish? Did not 
 the sheriff still escort the judges to open court, and 
 were not gowns and official robes still a thing of 
 the present? Surely, he would have been a rash in 
 novator who thought to change such a people in a 
 day. It was far more likely that he would become 
 proud and sedate like the rest than that he would 
 succeed in disturbing their self-satisfied quiescence. 
 But, some one will ask, was not this very sedate 
 city thrown into a tumult of confusion only six 
 years later? Did not hostile political factions 
 nearly come to blows in that most respectable of 
 localities, King Street, near Hasel ? Is not a 
 trifle always sufficient to set these people by the 
 ears? How is it, then, that they are represented
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 29 
 
 as cold, conservative, and slow to move? These 
 questions must be answered, and in answering them 
 we shall be compelled to leave Charleston for a 
 while and to extend our field of view in the manner 
 indicated at the beginning of this chapter. 
 
 South Carolina is often called the "Hotspur 
 State," and the impression has gone abroad that 
 every South Carolinian is an arrogant, hectoring 
 personage, ready to overwhelm you with his cour 
 tesy and hospitality at one moment, and at the next 
 to put a bullet into you from the distance of ten 
 paces. Even his Southern neighbors look upon 
 him with some awe, and consider his courtesy a 
 little stiff, his hospitality a little ceremonious, and 
 his courage a little too demonstrative and unreflect 
 ing. This popular impression is not the result of 
 mere prejudice or ignorance, but is based upon in 
 ferences from many undeniable facts. At the 
 same time no one can sojourn long in South Car 
 olina, or be much thrown with natives of the State, 
 without perceiving that this popular impression is 
 very far from being a just estimate of South Car 
 olinian character. The very appellation "Hotspur 
 State " is a loose one, for who can imagine a com 
 placent Hotspur perfectly well satisfied with him 
 self and his circumstances provided only he be let 
 alone ? Yet this complacency, this lack of ambi 
 tion, is a chief characteristic of the little State and 
 its people. It cannot, of course, be denied that 
 Carolina politicians have been dominated at times 
 by ambitious motives ; but the desire to be let alone,
 
 30 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 to be by themselves, to be the same to-day, to-mor 
 row, and a century hence, that their fathers were a 
 century ago, was more potent in stirring up the 
 mass of the people to the precipitant rashness of 
 nullification and secession than all the allurements 
 and incitements of the Goddess of Ambition could 
 ever have been, even though Calhoun himself, im 
 itating Peisistratos, had driven with her into the 
 market place of Charleston. 
 
 Of course the character of no people is free from 
 inconsistencies, certainly of no interesting people ; 
 but it would seem that the inhabitants of South 
 Carolina are preeminently conspicuous in this re 
 gard. They have always been ultra-democratic 
 aristocrats. With conservative tendencies so ex 
 treme as frequently to hamper development, they 
 have entered upon revolutions with a facility unpar 
 alleled outside of France. While countenancing a 
 code of honor that might bring misery upon any 
 family at any moment, they have constantly refused 
 to imperil the family with a law permitting ab 
 solute divorce. While professing to hold culture 
 and literary attainments in high repute, they have 
 consistently snubbed or disregarded all efforts that 
 looked toward the creation of a home literature. 
 While chivalrously careful of the sensibilities of 
 their equals, they have ignored, as a rule, the ex 
 istence of such sensibilities in their inferiors. Can 
 these inconsistencies, which are more or less seen 
 in the people of the other Southern States, be sat 
 isfactorily explained, or are they inconsistencies at 
 all?
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 31 
 
 If there be one fact that stands out before the 
 student of ante-bellum Southern history, it is that 
 the Southern people, down to 1861, were living a 
 primitive life, a life full of survivals. This fact 
 has been often brought out, by no one so clearly, 
 perhaps, as by Professor Shaler, of Harvard, in 
 his admirable article on "The Peculiarities of the 
 South." 1 Approximate explanations of the fact 
 have also been attempted, and these explanations 
 resolve themselves sooner or later into two words, 
 feudalism and slavery. The Southern people were 
 descendants, in the main, of that "portion of the 
 English people who," to quote Professor Shaler, 
 "had been least modernized, who still retained a 
 large element of the feudal notion." Feudal no 
 tions were by no means dead in the England of the 
 seventeenth century, and transplantation to a new 
 world gave them a more vigorous growth from the 
 moment that the first slave-ship made its appearance 
 in Virginia waters. Feudal-minded cavaliers were 
 the people of all others to whom overlordship would 
 be natural and grateful. What wonder, then, that 
 slavery struck its roots deep, or that the tree over 
 which it spread its poisonous tendrils should soon 
 show signs of decay? Slavery helped feudalism 
 and feudalism helped slavery, and the Southern 
 people were largely the outcome of the interaction 
 of these two formative principles. A few para 
 graphs will, perhaps, suffice to show the truth of 
 this statement, as well as to cast some light upon 
 1 In the North American Review for October, 1890.
 
 32 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 the alleged inconsistencies of the Southern charac 
 ter. 
 
 Among ante-bellum Southerners the plantation 
 played a part similar to that played of old by the 
 English manor. The planters were the sole repos 
 itories of social dignity and of judicial and political 
 power in their respective neighborhoods. They re 
 produced as far as was possible the life of the Eng 
 lish country gentleman, and those fortunate indi 
 viduals who, besides several plantations, possessed 
 well invested funds were accorded a position not un 
 like that of an English nobleman. In manners and 
 customs, in education and religion, they resembled 
 that survival of feudalism, the English squire, and 
 they prided themselves upon the resemblance. 
 They were even more tenacious of good old cus 
 toms than their prototypes : witness the gentlemanly 
 necessity for falling dead drunk under one's host's 
 table, a custom which, although it finally died, 
 seems to have held sway in the South after it had 
 died in England. Like the English squire they 
 were loyal to church and creed, to party chiefs 
 and principles, and this loyalty is a delightful sur 
 vival from the times described in the "Germania" 
 of Tacitus. 
 
 But the conservative and loyal Southerner was 
 feudal minded in other ways. He believed in social 
 distinctions and in the respect due to himself from 
 his inferiors. He acknowledged no superiors, but 
 as every gentleman had to defend his honor as 
 zealously as any knight of old, he saw the necessity
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 33 
 
 of observing a punctilious courtesy. He must also 
 be deferential to women, and guard the honor and 
 welfare of those of his own family. Being wo 
 man's guardian and worshiper, he demanded of her 
 charms, graces, and accomplishments, especially 
 those of the housekeeping order. But where was 
 the use of a high education for women, when any 
 Southern gentleman would welcome to his house his 
 old maid fifth cousin, provided she were dependent ? 
 He would even welcome ne'er-do-wells of the male 
 sex, for living was cheap, and the presence of such 
 hangers-on was a sign of his own importance as the 
 head of his house ; besides, they were agreeable fel 
 lows as a rule, who paid for their support much as 
 a court jester did in the Middle Ages. 
 
 But his hospitality was not limited to the poor 
 relation, or, indeed, limited at all. It, too, was a 
 relic of feudalism. It was lavish and hearty, and 
 not devoid of elegance, but in many respects it 
 would have suited the tastes of a Norman nobleman 
 better than those of a modern epicure. Abundance 
 was deemed a prime requisite of every entertain 
 ment, and one of the chief differences between the 
 Southern baron and his prototype of the twelfth 
 century lay in the fact that the former plundered 
 his own family by his wasteful hospitality, while 
 the latter plundered his neighbors by more open 
 and violent methods. When whole families of 
 relations would migrate from Florida to Virginia, 
 summer after summer, in gigs, in carriages, and 
 on horseback, with baggage wagons and numerous
 
 34 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 slaves in attendance ; when they would stay month 
 after month, living upon the fat of the land, the 
 gods of hospitality were doubtless delighted, but 
 the gods of thrift and household peace hid their 
 faces and groaned. And how like a royal prog 
 ress or a visit from one nobleman to another it 
 all was ! 
 
 But a Norman noble would have found more to 
 remind him of feudal days than the loaded-down 
 table of his host, had one revisited "the glimpses 
 of the moon " and become the guest of a Southern 
 planter. His dignity would not have stood out long 
 against the hail-fellow-well-met manners of those 
 around him. Late hours might have told upon 
 him at first, but the sound of the horn would have 
 found him ready for the chase, whether of deer or 
 fox, even though the old muzzle-loader put into his 
 hand were a cause of considerable bewilderment. 
 He would have thought that the horses were capar 
 isoned rather plainly, but he would have appreci 
 ated the horsemanship of the planter and his sons 
 as they vaulted into their saddles. The negroes, 
 who held the hounds and guns, or who hovered in 
 the neighborhood watching the preparations, might 
 have created some surprise, with their black faces, 
 but would instantly have been classed with his own 
 retainers at home. And finally, when, after a long 
 day's sport, they stretched a twelve-point buck be 
 fore the door of the mansion, and the lady of the 
 house, with her guests and daughters, came out to 
 welcome the hunters and to admire and pity the
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 35 
 
 prey, he would have thought of his own noble lady 
 issuing from her bower to welcome her lord home 
 from the battlefield or the chase. 
 
 One more feudal characteristic of the South may 
 now be mentioned, and then we shall be at liberty 
 to draw some conclusions as to what the very hack 
 neyed expression, "Southern chivalry," actually 
 means. Primogeniture, although not acknowledged 
 by law, really nourished in the South; for although 
 the head of a house had very few plans for his 
 daughter's future beyond marrying her off to a 
 man of known antecedents, he did have rather den- 
 nite plans about his sons, and especially about the 
 eldest. This young hero was to become the head 
 of the house, to take the homestead plantation, 
 and, if possible, to marry a neighbor's daughter 
 and increase the estate. He was usually sent to 
 Yale or Harvard, and after that to Europe; at any 
 rate he traveled about the South on horseback, and 
 visited his scattered cousins. It was no great mat 
 ter if he were not a reading man, but he must ride 
 well, and shoot well, and every manly accomplish 
 ment he could add to these was so much the better. 
 The Southern father would hardly have thanked 
 Saint Bothan for the fact that only one of his sons 
 could pen a line, but if one had turned author in a 
 professional way, he would have had a sneaking 
 feeling that the family had been somehow dig 
 graced. The other learned professions were, how 
 ever, open to the younger sons when there were not 
 plantations enough to go the rounds; but as soon as
 
 86 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 these sons made enough money, they proceeded to 
 reestablish their position among the gentry of their 
 native county by the purchase of a plantation. 
 They then slaved the rest of their lives at their 
 professions, trying to make enough money to cover 
 their losses from bad overseers and from a wasteful 
 system of culture. 
 
 Little has been said of the pleasant, easy-going 
 side of this life, of the parties and balls, the Christ 
 mas romps, the picnics and barbecues, but these 
 things have been sufficiently described time and 
 again. If feudal England was merry England, the 
 feudal South was the merry and the sunny South ; 
 nay, more, it was "a nation of men of honor and of 
 cavaliers." The South was never barbarous, for it 
 possessed a picturesque civilization marked by charm 
 of mind and manners both in men and women. 
 But the South had forgotten that, in the words of 
 Burke, "the age of chivalry is gone." It ignored 
 the fact that while chivalry was a good thing in its 
 day, modern civilization is a much higher thing. 
 Even now many otherwise well informed gentle 
 men do not understand the full meaning of that 
 expression "Southern chivalry," which they use so 
 often. They know that it stands for many bright 
 and high things, but they seem to forget its darker 
 meaning. They forget that it means that the peo 
 ple of the South were leading a primitive life, a 
 life behind the age. They forget that it means that 
 Southerners were conservative, slow to change, con 
 tented with the social distinctions already existing.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 37 
 
 They forget all this, but the expression has mean- 
 in^ which probably were never known to them. 
 It means that Southerners lived a life which, though 
 simple and picturesque, was nevertheless calculated 
 to repress many of the best faculties and powers of 
 our nature. It was a life affording few opportuni 
 ties to talents that did not lie in certain beaten 
 o-rooves. It was a life gaining its intellectual nour 
 ishment, just as it did its material comforts, largely 
 from abroad, -a life that choked all thought and 
 investigation that did not tend to conserve existing 
 institutions and opinions, a life that rendered ori 
 ginality scarcely possible except under the guise ot 
 eccentricity. Would not such a life produce pe 
 culiarities and seeming inconsistencies in a people, 
 and would not a young man shut out from it long 
 to gain admission into it, and form his ideas and 
 habits largely in accordance with its spirit? 
 
 So much has been said about the feudal element 
 in the Southern character that there is little time 
 left for a discussion of the effects of slavery upon 
 that character. But this subject has been so often 
 treated that after all there is little reason to regret 
 the necessity for its slight treatment here. It will, 
 too, inevitably crop up all along the course of our 
 narrative. Suffice it, then, to say that the more 
 Southern history is studied, the more it becomes 
 apparent that slavery was a much greater evil to the 
 master than to the slave. Throughout most of the 
 South, certainly in the older States, harsh and c 
 
 175059
 
 38 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 masters were decidedly rare. Where cruelty was 
 practiced toward the slave, and all of the atrocious 
 incidents recorded in abolitionist documents could 
 not have been exaggerated, the master was gener 
 ally responsible for it only in the way that an ab 
 sentee Irish landlord is responsible for the condi 
 tion of his tenants. The overseer in the one case, 
 the steward in the other, are the proximate causes 
 of the suffering, it being perfectly possible for both 
 slave-owner and landlord to be humane and hon 
 orable men. That they should be considered 
 thoughtful men, alive to a sense of duty, is not 
 possible ; and though we may feel for them when 
 they have had their duties forcibly thrust upon them 
 from without, it cannot be denied that such men 
 must at one time or another be awakened from 
 their slumbers. 
 
 Slavery lifted the African vastly in the scale of 
 civilization, and there is no telling what social and 
 economic benefits may in the future flow from it. 
 But this only palliates the evils of his condition 
 to the ex-slave and his freed descendants; it does 
 not affect our judgment of the slavers who cap 
 tured or of the masters who bought. The only and 
 sufficient excuse that can be made for these men is 
 the same excuse that can be made for the English 
 legislators who allowed thousands of poor wretches 
 to suffer more under absurd penal statutes than was 
 ever suffered by an African slave under an over 
 seer's lash, want of thought and a desire to let 
 things be.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 39 
 
 But if the effects of slavery upon the slave were 
 of a mixed nature, the effects upon the master were 
 almost wholly bad. He became an aristocrat and 
 yet claimed to be a democrat; hence he strove to 
 resist the course of development his country was 
 taking, and was crushed in the attempt. His re 
 lations with his aristocratic neighbors developed his 
 chivalric qualities, and made him fall behind his 
 age. His power as a landed and slave proprietor 
 drove out the small yeoman, cowed the tradesman 
 and the mechanic, and deprived the South of that 
 most necessary factor in the development of a na 
 tion's greatness, a thrifty middle class. He became 
 day by day more conservative, more inert, more 
 proud. When he was aroused it was oftener by 
 scorn and passion, by a determination to carry his 
 own policy with a high hand, than by the prompt 
 ings of a generous ambition or a wide - reaching 
 sympathy. Hence he could make a dashing poli 
 tician of himself, but not a statesman ; a vehement 
 and florid orator, but not a poet. 
 
 It would be idle to attempt to enumerate all the 
 evils that inured to the Southern gentry from the 
 existence of slavery. It would be equally idle to 
 enumerate the brighter features of the system. 
 That it was wasteful and ruinous; that it was 
 founded upon injustice or blindness, and continued 
 by blindness ; that it afforded constant provocation 
 to the indulgence of lowering passions, these are 
 truths that cannot be gainsaid. That, in spite of 
 foolish and horrible laws, it lifted the status of the
 
 40 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 African; that it fostered the beautiful relations of 
 fidelity and protecting care ; that it reproduced in 
 the new world some of the most picturesque features 
 of an old-world and old-time civilization, these 
 also are truths which some honest persons seem de 
 sirous to ignore, and which other honest persons 
 seem equally anxious to magnify. 
 
 There is one point in this connection, however, 
 that deserves a brief notice. Most of the great 
 Southerners of the days of Washington were as out 
 spoken about the evils of slavery as their chief; 
 how was it that forty years later the leading men 
 of the South wrote and thought of slavery as of an 
 institution established and blessed by God himself ? 
 One reason is obvious. The trials of the Eevolu- 
 tion, and of the times immediately preceding and 
 following it, had taught Washington and his com 
 peers to use their minds. They turned them upon 
 themselves, nor shrank from the painful but logical 
 conclusions forced upon them. Seventy years later 
 this was changed. The stimulus of a great crisis 
 having been withdrawn, the incapacity of the easy 
 going cavalier for grappling with great moral prob 
 lems became more and more apparent. His pocket 
 grew larger and his mind narrower, as the market 
 for his great agricultural staples increased. What 
 wonder that he forgot the warning words of his wise 
 forerunners ! When the rest of the world woke up 
 at last, though shamefully late, to the horrors of 
 the slave system even under its most favorable 
 aspects, he awoke only to the fact that he was be-
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 41 
 
 ing criticised ; that his critics frequently used harsh 
 words and did not appreciate his good qualities. 
 He felt, but he did not think. At best he thought 
 backwards, and, with his feelings for a guide, be 
 gan to use his by no means inconsiderable powers 
 of mind in the erection of a system of political and 
 social philosophy which, as an exhibition of what 
 wrong-headed honesty can accomplish in the way 
 of self -stultification, has never had an equal in the 
 world's history. 
 
 Now this incapacity to reason clearly, with the 
 direful consequences that flowed from it, social 
 decay, war, and painful reconstruction, is charge 
 able to no one man, and deserves no words of 
 blame. The evils of an institution like slavery are 
 vastly multiplied for each succeeding generation. 
 The economic and selfish interests of the master 
 grow stronger year by year. The dangers arising 
 from domestic insurrection and from foreign inter 
 ference become more and more imminent. And 
 finally the evil effects, mental and moral, of over- 
 lordship arrogance, contempt for inferiors, in 
 ertia of mind and body continue to sap, with 
 increasing force, the vigor of the individual and of 
 the State. Under such conditions and with his in 
 herited qualities, it is no wonder that the South 
 erner of the days of nullification was inferior to his 
 revolutionary sire. Slavery and feudalism had 
 combined and done their work effectively. 
 
 We are now in a position to see that the incon 
 sistencies pointed out in the character of the South
 
 42 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 Carolinian, if inconsistencies at all, were such only 
 in an objective sense. Their existence did not im 
 ply a want of consistency of feeling or action on 
 the part of the inhabitants of the little State. It 
 was natural for such a people to be extremely con 
 servative, and yet to be easily swayed in their pas 
 sions whenever they fancied that they were being 
 insulted or imposed upon. It was natural for 
 them to proclaim themselves to be democrats, and 
 yet not cease to be aristocrats ; for every member 
 of that aristocracy claimed equal rights with every 
 other, and no one recognized the lower classes more 
 than was absolutely necessary. It was also natural 
 for the modern representatives of an age that pro 
 duced the Crusades and the knightly encounter to 
 give their antagonists every opportunity for re 
 venge ; it was equally natural for them to look upon 
 an absolute divorce with something like horror. 
 In their contempt for native authors they were 
 simply reproducing a feeling common enough in 
 England a century before. In short, although 
 such causes as the extreme sultriness of his climate, 
 the intermixture of French blood, and the prepon 
 derating number of his slaves, may have made the 
 South Carolinian appear a marked man even to his 
 Southern neighbors, it is apparent that his pecu 
 liarities were shared with all the Southern people, 
 and that they were just what might have been ex 
 pected from a man living in his environment and 
 with his inherited qualities. 
 
 Such, in the main, were the men whom Simms
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 43 
 
 was destined to live with, and into whose society he 
 longed, as a boy, to be admitted. However clearly 
 he might see their faults and failings, he could not 
 escape from the fascination which their easy, pleas 
 ant life exerted. But while it is both interesting 
 and important to know something of the influences 
 by which Simms was surrounded, there is some 
 danger that, if this discussion be prolonged, the ex 
 istence of that gentleman will be forgotten. Let 
 us, therefore, return to him. 
 
 That a young man who is destined to make a rep 
 utation, great or small, as a prose writer should 
 begin his career by vainly attempting to write 
 verse is one of the commonplaces of literary his 
 tory. The phenomenon needs no comment, and 
 the biographer of such a man is readily excused 
 from dwelling upon his hero's metrical failures. 
 Simms differs from the common run of would-be 
 bards that eventually find their true place among 
 prose-men, only by the fact that to the day of his 
 death he never ceased to write verse, or to feel that 
 he had been cruelly wronged by a generation that 
 had refused to hail him as an inspired poet. This 
 fact will naturally need explanation, and will force 
 me to allude more often to Simms's poetical ven 
 tures than their intrinsic worth would otherwise 
 warrant. I shall endeavor, however, to confine 
 myself to such aspects of his forgotten poetry as 
 have definite relations with his more successful work 
 as a romancer, and to such as will illustrate the
 
 44 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 merits and defects of Southern poetry in general. 
 And I shall dwell upon this last point the more 
 readily because I believe that the best service that 
 can be done to the memory of Simms will be, not 
 to hold him up as an unjustly treated poet, which he 
 was not, or as a partially successful romancer, 
 which he was, but to deal with him as the most 
 conspicuous representative of letters the old South 
 can boast of, 1 as a type of a peculiar people, as, 
 finally, a man who, under harassing conditions, 
 fought a brave fight to lead the higher life. 
 
 Probably the first thing that our young aspirant 
 for fame did after his return from the Southwest 
 was to brush the dust from his long abandoned law 
 books. But his study of Blackstone did not have 
 the same effect upon him as the study that went to 
 the making of the great commentaries had upon 
 Blackstone. Simms wrote no Farewell to his 
 Muse. On the contrary, he had not settled down 
 many weeks before he was not only writing new 
 verses, but, what is worse, publishing them. He 
 had some excuse for this conduct, however, for an 
 event had occurred that demanded instant com 
 memoration in song. This event was the death of 
 General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, which took 
 place on the 16th of August, 1825. A patriotic 
 young poet could have had no more congenial 
 theme than the death of such a man. General 
 Pinckney represented all that was venerable in 
 
 1 Foe is excepted, as the South's claim to him is not unimpeach 
 able.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 45 
 
 Carolina's past. He had received or refused al 
 most every honor that a republic could bestow, and 
 once, at least, words had fallen from his lips that 
 his countrymen would not willingly let die. 
 
 It is little wonder, then, that the " Courier " of 
 September 14th should have contained a compli 
 mentary notice of an anonymous Monody on Gen 
 eral Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, which the editor 
 declared to have proceeded from a hand not un 
 known to his readers. It is also no matter of won 
 der that the young poet adopted the heroic couplet 
 as his measure, and began by describing a serene 
 sunset. It is some slight matter of surprise, how 
 ever, that the little volume has so entirely escaped 
 discovery. Collectors of rare Charlestoniana have 
 never even heard of it, and catalogues of great pub 
 lic and private libraries have been searched for it 
 in vain. But the cover in which Simms's own 
 copy once resided has been seen, and with that and 
 the extracts furnished by the "Courier" critic, we 
 may well rest content. 
 
 In spite of the "Courier's" commendation there 
 is every reason to believe that this patriotic tribute 
 made no impression whatever upon the cultivated 
 circles its author particularly desired to reach. 
 Most of the elegant gentlemen forming those cir 
 cles were still living, in imagination at least, in the 
 time of Horace. If they had come down the cen 
 turies at all, they had certainly stopped at another 
 Augustan age, that of Pope and Addison. Not 
 a few private libraries in the South will be found,
 
 46 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 upon examination, practically to have stopped there 
 for good, which is one explanation of Mr. Sted- 
 man's correct surmise "that standard literature, in 
 cluding poetry, is read with more interest in the 
 South " than in the North. It is very often all 
 that a Southern boy with a taste for reading can 
 lay his hands on, unless he is content with a stray 
 novel or a contemporary magazine. At the period 
 here treated of, there were doubtless a considerable 
 number of book-buyers in Charleston, a class 
 which, by the way, decreased as men ran deeper in 
 debt, grew more excited over politics, and finally 
 lost their property in the war; but they had some 
 thing better to do, in their own opinion, than to 
 encourage the efforts of native American genius, 
 especially of a Charleston nobody. To quote Paul 
 Hayne : " That any man ignorant of the dead lan 
 guages, who could only read Homer through the 
 medium of old Chapman or Pope, and whose 
 acquisitions generally were confined to the master 
 pieces of his own vulgar mother tongue, should as 
 pire to the honors of any of the Muses seemed 
 monstrous and absurd. The sole arbiters of taste 
 in a comparatively small provincial town, they 
 treated the maiden effusions of our author with 
 good-natured contempt." How Simms repaid them 
 in kind will be seen hereafter. 
 
 These supercilious critics came near having an 
 other opportunity to show their scorn of Simms and 
 his like. The young gentleman devoted many 
 hours that should have been given to Blackstone to
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 47 
 
 polishing his precocious play on the fortunes of 
 Roderick. He then submitted it to a manager, who, 
 strange to say, accepted, announced, and put it in 
 rehearsal. A subsequent quarrel with his bene 
 factor induced Simms to withdraw the play, and 
 although he immediately wrote two new ones, he 
 had the sense to burn them. Had he not quar 
 reled with Holman (or Gilfert, that gentleman's 
 son-in-law and successor) he would have had to run 
 a very severe critical gauntlet. For those were the 
 golden days of the drama in Charleston, when 
 Cooper often drove up to the Broad Street Theatre 
 in the gig that had carried him from Boston to New 
 Orleans, and when Crafts and his fellow-connois 
 seurs sat in state and weighed out their applause 
 with judicial hands. 
 
 Meanwhile he had himself been acting a rather 
 serious part in life's drama for a poor young man 
 of twenty. On October 19, 1826, he had been 
 married to Miss Anna Malcolm Giles. Little is 
 known of her family save that she was the daugh 
 ter of a Mr. Othniel J. Giles, who appears, from 
 a stray notice gleaned from the " City Gazette " 
 for 1828, to have been in the city's employ as clerk 
 to the board of commissioners of streets and lamps. 
 This would seem to preclude any possibility that 
 Simms could have bettered his affairs by his mar 
 riage, which was probably a true love match with 
 a girl he had long known. Nothing is known of 
 the bride herself, save that she was a Charlestonian, 
 and two years and a half younger than her husband.
 
 48 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 There is reason to believe that the young couple 
 took up their residence at Summerville, a suburban 
 village, where board was cheap. Perhaps, how 
 ever, this was only a summer home. 
 
 As several months were to run before he could 
 be admitted to the bar, our poet had abundant lei 
 sure to prepare his second volume for the press. 
 On New Year's Day, 1827, therefore, he signed an 
 advertisement to a collection of poems, written for 
 the most part before his nineteenth year, and en 
 titled "Lyrical and Other Poems." As Simms 
 subsequently suppressed his youthful ventures, this 
 volume is now quite rare ; but it would, have be 
 come so even if its author had not lifted a finger 
 for its destruction. Its prevailing tone was of 
 course Byronic, and when the poet grew tired of 
 reciting the woes of the Greeks, he could draw on 
 his own southwestern experiences and recite those 
 of the Creeks. The general impression produced 
 is that the young writer has ability, but not of a 
 poetic order. There is a certain fluency of diction 
 and directness of expression that suggest the possi 
 ble development of a serviceable prose style, but 
 there is an utter absence of that charm which, ac 
 cording to Matthew Arnold, makes the " song of 
 the poet divine." There is a commonplaceness 
 both of matter and style that more than neutralizes 
 the facility and correctness that mark the verses ; 
 and one perceives that this facility and correctness 
 will stand greatly in Simms 's way as a poet by 
 making him disdain to take pains with his work.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 49 
 
 Whether he would ever have got pleasure out of 
 "poetic pains" may be doubted in spite of Cow- 
 per's authority. Southerners did not usually like 
 to work. 
 
 But however unsuccessful his poetry, Simms 
 could at least flatter himself that he had striven to 
 relieve his section from the reproach of having done 
 little or nothing toward the creation of a national 
 literature. It was an auspicious moment for such 
 an undertaking. In the North, Cooper and Irving 
 were working like bees, to say nothing of Bryant 
 and Halleck, and Pierpont and Percival, and the 
 lamented Drake. But what could the South show? 
 Maryland could indeed point to a tiny volume con 
 taining a few lines of genuine poetry, and declare 
 that even in its crudest portions there were traces 
 of a virility of thought and expression not usually 
 perceptible in the work of American poets. But 
 Pinkney was to die in a year and, worse fate, was 
 to fall into the hands of the Reverend Mr. Griswold. 
 Virginia could say much the same thing of the 
 unfortunate Richard Dabney, l who at least escaped 
 Griswold, and who was long credited, and still is, 
 in Virginia, with having written Peacock's "Rho- 
 dodaphne." And both States could name poets of 
 a single song, like Key and McClurg, and forensic 
 rivals, like the elder Pinkney and Wirt. Besides, 
 had not Marshall and Wirt published standard 
 biographies, and were not the latter's mild Addiso- 
 
 1 Foe's Tamerlane (Boston, 1827) would hardly have been 
 cited.
 
 50 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 nian essays read in all parts of the land? Then, 
 too, Georgia could boast of Eichard Henry Wilde, 
 albeit he was foreign born; and South Carolina 
 had Crafts and Farmer, and Holland and Hasell, 
 and Muller and Spier in, no matter if the last three 
 were hardly remembered even in Charleston itself. 
 They had written prize poems, and therefore they 
 deserved to be remembered, especially Spierin, who 
 died at sixteen. So, at least, thought Simms when 
 twenty years later he dutifully collected their choi 
 cest pieces in "The Charleston Book.'* 1 
 
 But although a few Southern bibliophiles could 
 have added to this list of names, and perhaps felt 
 a faint glow of pride in reciting them, a candid 
 critic, even of the year 1827, would have been com 
 pelled to confess that, if America as a whole made a 
 poor showing in literature, the South made scarcely 
 any at all. He would, perhaps, have accounted 
 for this state of things by pointing out the imma 
 turity of the country, the absence of towns which 
 could act as literary centres and furnish publishers, 
 and the absorption of the upper classes in politics 
 and in social pleasures. How far slavery accounted 
 for these facts and how far it had injured the South 
 ern mind, he would hardly have thought it neces 
 sary to inquire. Naturally, he could not be ex 
 pected to know that at that very time New England 
 was training up certain of her sons whose literary 
 work would not only redound to the glory of the 
 
 1 The only example I know of a Southern "annual " if the 
 name be applicable where only one volume is published.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 51 
 
 whole country, but would also confute forever the 
 pretensions of Slavery to rank with Freedom as 
 the nurse and guardian of genius. 
 
 There was room, then, for a new Southern writer, 
 if Slavery still wished to continue the unequal con 
 test ; and the death of Crafts had left an especially 
 good opening in Charleston. But in the opinion 
 of the Charlestonians, this opening could be filled 
 by one man only, Hugh Swinton Legare, whose 
 prodigious performances at the new state college 
 were still remembered. Legare was certainly able 
 to fill, and more than fill, Crafts 's place. As we 
 glance over the latter 's remains and note the thin 
 quality of his essays and orations, and the still thin 
 ner quality of his poetry, we wonder that there could 
 ever have been a time and place when such a man 
 could have been considered a great literary light. 
 But we remember the " Brazen Treasury of Songs 
 and Lyrics " of Mr. Griswold, and are silent. Le 
 gare, who was to keep Simms for years out of his 
 rightful position as the first of Southern authors, 
 at least in the eyes of the South Carolinians, was 
 a writer of far more weight than Crafts ; but in his 
 case, unfortunately, weight meant, as it so often 
 does, lack of creative power and positive dullness. 
 In spite of all that has been said of his brilliancy, 
 in spite of his remarkable scholarship, which in the 
 special department of the civil law was perhaps su 
 perior to that of any other American of his day, I 
 have to confess that I laid down the two thick vol 
 umes of his works with a sigh of relief and regret.
 
 52 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 Of relief, because I had discharged the duty I owed 
 to one of the few classic writers of my section ; of 
 regret, because I could not but acknowledge that 
 here was another instance of the fact that great in 
 dustry and great learning cannot of themselves make 
 a man a great writer. His scholarship was not 
 even of service in popularizing the scholarly work 
 of others; for who of his luxuriously inclined 
 Southern readers could have read without napping 
 his long essays on Athenian and Roman history in 
 the " Southern Review " ? If they were read 
 through, then our ancestors were more patient and 
 long-suffering than they are usually supposed to 
 have been. 
 
 But after all, the Charlestonians were perhaps 
 right in putting Legare into the vacant seat of 
 honor and in coupling his name with that of the far 
 from heavy and scholarly Wirt. Certainly no one 
 could have foretold from the "Lyrical and Other 
 Poems " that a youngster who had frequently car 
 ried pill boxes and medicine bottles through the 
 streets of Charleston would at no distant day stand 
 forth to the world as the chief, if not the sole liter 
 ary man of his State and the recognized delineator 
 of her manners and customs. 
 
 On April 17, 1827, his twenty-first birthday, 
 Simms was admitted to the bar. That he was 
 speedily successful, for a beginner, may be inferred 
 from the fact that his receipts from his first year's 
 practice amounted to six hundred dollars. Most 
 young married men in his position would probably
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 53 
 
 have stuck to the law and let poetry go; but 
 Simms thought otherwise. It was well enough to 
 be able to defend a murderer in a style which a 
 bystander has described as "vehement, earnest, 
 dramatic;" but his earnestness and his dramatic 
 talents ought to be reserved for higher things. He 
 accordingly celebrated the close of the year with 
 another still more daringly Byronic volume, enti 
 tled "Early Lays." 
 
 In this he actually gave his own "Apostrophe to 
 Ocean " in orthodox Spenserian stanzas, and then 
 proceeded to sing the praises of another favorite, 
 Thomas Jefferson. It can be seen, however, that 
 the history and legends of his State and section are 
 beginning to fascinate him, and one is willing to 
 read a poem on "The Last of the Yemassees," in 
 consideration of the pleasure already derived from 
 what is, perhaps, the most popular of his romances. 
 
 Meanwhile a daughter had been born to him 
 (November 11, 1827), and christened Anna Au 
 gusta. She was the only child his first wife 
 brought him, and for this reason she became espe 
 cially dear to him. But the addition to his family 
 made him doubly anxious to add to his income, and 
 as many a fond dreamer had done before him, he 
 resolved to rely solely on his pen. His law books 
 were abandoned; and in June, 1828, he issued a 
 prospectus for a new literary magazine in conjunc 
 tion with James W. Simmons. It may be gath 
 ered from this prospectus that a paper called 
 "The Tablet" had been running for some time in
 
 54 WILLIAM GILMOEE 
 
 Charleston, probably under the editorship of Mr. 
 Simmons, who was not only a friend of Simms's, 
 but also a brother poet in a small way. It was now 
 proposed to enlarge this paper to a monthly mag 
 azine of sixty-four pages, to be entitled "The 
 Tablet, or Southern Monthly Literary Gazette." 
 On Saturday, September 6th, the first number was 
 issued and was complimented in the " City Ga 
 zette." The experiment was continued through 
 two half-yearly volumes ; but as each number fell 
 dead from the press, and as the pockets of both 
 partners began to suffer, it was considered that 
 enough had been done for the glory of Southern 
 literature, and publication was discontinued. 
 
 It has been impossible, so far, to discover a 
 complete set of this short-lived periodical, but a few 
 of Simms's contributions have been preserved. 
 One, a notice of a long-forgotten book, is charac 
 terized by a successful assumption of the omni 
 scient tone of an Edinburgh reviewer ; another crit 
 icises the prying tendencies of modern biographers 
 with a vim and directness which, if not convincing, 
 are at least refreshing to a biographer. The 
 readers of the number for July 1, 1829, were also 
 treated to some fragments of an oration delivered 
 the previous year by Mr. Simms, on the occasion of 
 the fifty-second anniversary of the battle of Fort 
 Moultrie. The Palmetto Society, before which it 
 was delivered, appears to have languished after 
 the anniversary just mentioned; but this fact is to 
 be attributed to the proximity of the Fourth of
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 55 
 
 July, and not to the character of Simms's oration, 
 which seems to have been as patriotic and florid as 
 the tastes of his hearers could well have demanded. 
 The fact that he was selected as orator shows that 
 he was not absolutely ignored in his native city ; 
 and it is interesting to think that he may have had 
 among his hearers no less a personage than Edgar 
 Allan Poe, who was at that time serving as E. A. 
 Perry in Battery H, First Artillery, stationed at 
 Fort Moultrie. 
 
 But our two co-workers in behalf of Southern 
 literature were not alone either in their efforts or 
 in their failures. Older men of greater distinction 
 and resources had awakened to the fact that the 
 South had no proper medium through which the few 
 writers and thinkers she possessed could make their 
 'ideas public. But these gentlemen had the true 
 Southern contempt for small things. Nothing but 
 a quarterly review of the approved English type 
 would comport with the dignity of Charleston ; for 
 did not Boston glory in that decorous periodical 
 the " North American Review "? What New Eng 
 land could do, the South could do; so Elliott and 
 Legare set to work with a will, and launched the 
 " Southern Review." 
 
 The first number of this child of many prayers 
 saw the light in February, 1828. All the pride 
 and all the talent of South Carolina were interested 
 in its success. Not only would it give Southern 
 writers an organ, and show the rest of the world 
 what things they could do; it would also dissemi-
 
 56 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 nate the true and only political doctrine of the 
 divine rights of States. But alas! not even an 
 orthodox quarterly review, conducted by brilliant 
 men, backed by public sentiment, and supported 
 by such contributors as Cooper, Nott, and Henry, 
 of the College, and McCord, Grimke, Turnbull, 
 William Elliott, and the two editors from the city 
 and State at large, could "create a soul under the 
 ribs of death," a Southern literature under the 
 shadow of slavery. Even in Boston the "North 
 American " was dragging along in a dull and weary 
 way; and it was not at all certain that such stately 
 periodicals could flourish anywhere on this side of 
 the water. To expect one to flourish in a small 
 city, in an isolated section, where the people read 
 little and were disinclined to trouble themselves 
 about such a trifling thing as paying a subscrip 
 tion, argued an ingenuousness on the part of the 
 editors as noble as it was chimerical. One is not 
 surprised, therefore, to read a conspicuous notice 
 in the fifteenth number, requesting subscribers to 
 pay up, or to find Elliott and Legare withdrawing 
 and leaving their bantling to die on the hands of 
 the former's son, Stephen Elliott, Junior, after 
 wards first bishop of Georgia. 
 
 But they had made a gallant struggle for four 
 years, and their review had been a credit to them in 
 many ways. If the articles look long and dry to 
 us, it must be remembered that such will before 
 long be the fate of the article we read only yester 
 day in our favorite English review; if they seem
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 57 
 
 to bristle with quotations, we must remember that 
 the South was not yet awake to the fact that the 
 eighteenth century was defunct ; and if some lucu 
 brations of not the least length are unmistakably 
 padded, we must remember that not infrequently 
 one man (Legare) had to furnish half the contents 
 of a number. It is not likely that many individ 
 uals, even of the most loyal class of Southerners, 
 have ever been tempted to look inside the covers 
 of the eight formidable volumes that represent the 
 labors of Legare and his friends. The present 
 writer does not pretend to have mastered their con 
 tents, but he has read enough to make him respect 
 the zeal and talents of editors and contributors 
 alike, fully enough to make him regret that such 
 zeal and such talents were practically thrown away 
 from causes over which their possessors had little or 
 no control. But where Elliott and Legare failed, 
 how could Simms and Simmons hope to succeed ? 
 
 With the failure of his magazine Simms was 
 under the necessity of seeking fresh employment. 
 It so happened that a daily newspaper of long 
 standing, the "City Gazette," was for sale, and he 
 determined to invest in this manner the remains of 
 the small property that had come to him through 
 his mother. A practical printer, E. S. Duryea 
 by name, was found who was willing to form a 
 partnership ; and the new firm began issuing their 
 paper on the first of the new year (1830). A cur 
 sory comparison of the first volume issued under 
 Simms' s editorship with those that immediately
 
 58 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 preceded it reveals the fact that the local news is 
 more fully reported, and that more attention is 
 paid to current literature. Strange to say there 
 is not a great deal of poetry, and there is a corre 
 sponding paucity of editorial comment on passing 
 events. 
 
 But if Simms did not publish much poetry in his 
 newspaper, he did not let his previous failures deter 
 him from issuing two fresh volumes. One, entitled 
 "Cortes, Cain, and Other Poems" (1829), was 
 only remarkable as containing "The Lost Pleiad," 
 the single poem of his which has approached popu 
 larity, and as showing the early influence of Words 
 worth upon him. This influence could not make 
 him a poet, but it made him a greater lover of na 
 ture and a better and wiser man. In 1830 ap 
 peared "The Tri-Color," a Byronic outpouring in 
 honor of the Three Days of July. It is not sur 
 prising that an ardent Jeffersonian like Simms 
 should have written on such a subject; even staid 
 Charleston gave banquets in honor of French de 
 mocracy ; but it is a little strange that a London 
 firm should have thought fit to issue the volume be 
 fore the end of the year. 
 
 Meanwhile, South Carolina had entered upon a 
 crisis which brought no little responsibility to every 
 citizen, and especially to one who had assumed the 
 role of public instructor. The era of peace was 
 over, and throughout the country little was heard 
 save the jangling of rival politicians and the hypo-
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 59 
 
 critical wailing of our perennial national bantling, 
 the Infant Industry. In South Carolina matters 
 were much worse. The protective features of the 
 tariffs of 1824 and 1828, the increasing appropri 
 ations for internal improvements, and the general 
 feeling of uneasiness caused by the agitation of the 
 slavery question at the time of the Missouri Com 
 promise, had greatly strengthened the hold of the 
 states-rights doctrine upon the people at large, and 
 had afforded ample opportunity for high and threat 
 ening talk to fiery and unbalanced politicians. As 
 early as 1822, the legislature had been so far car 
 ried away as to pass a manifestly unconstitutional 
 law infringing the rights of free citizens of color 
 of other States; and the famous anti-everything 
 resolutions 1 of Calhoun's rival, Judge William 
 Smith, were but a less extreme indication of the 
 spirit pervading the body. The crowning rashness 
 of the ordinance of nullification was not far off, 
 when so vehement a man as Judge Smith was de 
 posed from the leadership of the states-rights party 
 because he was too mild. 
 
 During this exciting time of resolutions and pro 
 tests, and harangues and banquets, Simms kept his 
 wits about him, and attached himself closely to the 
 party bearing a name which would have seemed 
 a contradiction in terms thirty years later, 
 the Union and States-rights party. As a patriotic 
 young citizen and the editor of an influential news 
 paper, he must have been thrown into something 
 
 1 Anti-bank, anti-tariff, anti internal improvements.
 
 60 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 like cordial relations with the chiefs of his party, 
 Petigru, Legare, Grimke, Poinsett, and others. 
 It is at least certain that at the great Union cele 
 bration of the Fourth of July, 1831, he repeated 
 "A National Ode," which was duly published along 
 with the patriotic orations called forth by the oc 
 casion. 
 
 The cumbrous name of the party, in whose be 
 half he opened his columns to numerous letters 
 signed by defunct Roman heroes, had the merit of 
 describing accurately the political principles he 
 held. He was a states-rights man, who still ad 
 hered to the Union. But so was Calhoun, whose 
 zeal for the preservation of the Union was always 
 as great as his exertions for its destruction. 
 Simms, and most of those who thought and acted 
 with him at this juncture, would have upheld as 
 strenuously as Calhoun the ultimate right of a 
 State to secede. No more than Calhoun did he 
 favor protective tariffs and internal improve 
 ments. Where, then, was the difference between 
 them? It lay in the fact that Simms' s common 
 sense refused to see that the time had yet come for 
 the application of desperate remedies, or that Cal 
 houn 's scheme promised any remedy at all short of 
 revolution. A consistent Jeffersonian, he refused 
 to admit that the Kentucky and Virginia resolu 
 tions could be made, by any fair process of reason 
 ing, to support the monstrous heresy of a separate 
 state veto. He naturally distrusted a political 
 cure-all unknown to the founders of the Republic,
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 61 
 
 and only discovered and brought forward by a 
 subtle theorist to meet a particular emergency. 
 And yet, thirty years later, when he was revising 
 his "History of South Carolina," he gave an ac 
 count of this nullification movement that squinted 
 strongfy in Calhoun's direction. But this turning, 
 although it may not be justified, will be satisfac 
 torily explained, perhaps, as our narrative pro 
 ceeds. 
 
 It would be out of place to enter here upon a 
 criticism of Calhoun's political doctrines or upon 
 an elaborate account of a crisis about which so 
 much has been written. Yet that crisis, coming 
 as it did at the beginning df his career, could not 
 have failed to exert some decided influence upon 
 the character of our young editor. He was com 
 pelled to choose his side and to stand by it, which 
 was an influence for good. He became involved 
 in pecuniary losses, and was thus thrown still more 
 upon his own resources. His responsibility as a 
 public man, his widened relations with his fellow- 
 citizens, his experience of anxiety and defeat, 
 strengthened all his powers and transformed him 
 from something of a dreamer to a man who never 
 afterwards lost his grasp upon affairs. On the 
 other hand, he was probably too young to resist all 
 the unfavorable influences that a period of excite 
 ment is likely to exert. To the day of his death he 
 was anxious to be recognized as an important fac 
 tor in the politics of his section ; for a long time it 
 was known by his friends that he would not disdain
 
 62 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 to fill a respectable office. Then again his nullifi 
 cation experiences taught him to look too lightly 
 upon great political movements; they accustomed 
 him to discuss the pros and cons of grave questions 
 which should have been approached with awe, if, 
 indeed, they should not rather have been shunned. 
 Finally, his awakening from his dreams must have 
 been a rough one ; his ideals of human nature must 
 have been lowered, when he saw brother divided 
 against brother, and gentlemen ready to come to 
 blows on the streets of Charleston. 
 
 The tunes were indeed out of joint, and neither 
 the firmness of Jackson nor the compromises of 
 Clay were destined to straighten them. Petigru 
 summed up the state of the case rather neatly when 
 he wrote: "I am devilishly puzzled to know 
 whether my friends are mad, or I beside myself. 
 Let us hope we shall make some discovery before 
 long, which will throw some light on the subject, 
 and give the people the satisfaction of knowing 
 whether they are in their right minds. When 
 
 poor Judge W used to fancy himself a teapot, 
 
 people thought he was hypochondriac; but there 
 are in the present day very good heads filled with 
 notions that seem to me not less strange." 1 Simms 
 was soon destined to experience in his own person 
 the truth of these remarks. 
 
 He had made himself quite conspicuous by his 
 Union editorials, and by the personal attacks he 
 had suffered to be printed in his columns. He 
 1 Grayson's Memoir of Petigru, pp. 118, 119.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 63 
 
 had helped the Union men to carry the election 
 for mayor, or rather for intendant, in July, 1830 ; 
 and so he was no object of favor when, in their 
 turn, the Nullifiers were victorious in the election 
 for members of the legislature in September of the 
 following year. Shortly after this latter victory the 
 elated Calhounites determined to have a grand 
 torch-light procession, the route of which lay in 
 front of the office of the "Gazette," which then 
 stood on the south side of Broad Street near East 
 Bay. The scene which followed has been de 
 scribed by several bystanders, but no contemporary 
 printed account of it has been discovered. 
 
 The "Gazette" office was brightly lighted, and 
 Simms was standing in the front door alone, watch 
 ing the procession. He was known to most of the 
 crowd, some of whom took offense at what they re 
 garded as his defiant attitude, and hissed. He 
 looked scornfully at them, and muttered, "Cow 
 ards ! " Those near enough to overhear him became 
 excited and made a rush at the office. Simms stood 
 his ground and defied them. The crowd, being in 
 a good humor from their recent victory, admired 
 the courage and audacity of the man, and were 
 easily persuaded by some prudent friends of Dur- 
 yea to pass by with a cheer for "nullification.'* 
 So Simms's partner saved his printing presses, and 
 Simms his body or, perhaps, his life. 
 
 Another eyewitness, as might have been ex 
 pected, reports the occurrence somewhat differently. 
 According to this authority the attack was made
 
 64 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 by day and by an organized mob, composed, of 
 course, of the best citizens, rather than by a jolly 
 torch -light procession. Simms, too, appears in a 
 more formidable guise, for he is armed. But all 
 accounts bear testimony to the bravery of the man, 
 and to his success in overawing his assailants. 1 
 
 Simms is described as having been at this period 
 a strikingly handsome and powerful man. All 
 traces of the weakness that marked his childhood 
 had disappeared. He was not far from six feet in 
 height, and as "erect as a poplar," with a fine head 
 set upon broad shoulders. Later in life he inclined 
 to corpulency, but now his figure suggested strength 
 and activity rather than heaviness. His brow was. 
 superb, as any one that has seen J. Q. A. Ward's 
 bust of him, on the Charleston Battery, can readily 
 imagine. His bluish-gray eye, according to Paul 
 Hayne, flashed like a scimitar in moments of excite 
 ment. As he wore no beard in those days, the res 
 oluteness and dogged determination of his heavy 
 jaws and chin must have told upon the crowd; and 
 the habitual curl of his full lips must have added 
 weight to his scornful words. There is a combi 
 nation of the heavenly and the earthly in the face 
 which Ward has given us that finds its counterpart 
 in the life and character of the man ; but fortu 
 nately the heavenly dominates the earthly. 
 
 1 The authorities relied on are (1) A tribute to Mr. Simms by 
 Mr. A. P. Aldrich, delivered before the Court of Common Pleas 
 for Barnwell County, January term, 1871 ; (2) William L. King's 
 The Newspaper Press of Charleston, page 63 ; (3) A letter received 
 by myself from the late Mr. S. Y. Tupper of Charleston.
 
 SEEKING A VOCATION. 65 
 
 Personal danger was the least of the troubles in 
 which Simms's editorship of the "Gazette" in 
 volved him. Even before the triumph of the Nul- 
 lifiers he complained publicly of having lost some 
 of his subscribers on account of his free expres 
 sion of Union principles. After the successful 
 election of Calhoun's candidates in September, the 
 indignant editor felt bound to publish several let 
 ters that had passed between himself and gentlemen 
 in the upper part of South Carolina and at the 
 North. He had been accused of running his paper 
 and asserting his Union principles for the pay and 
 in the interest of wealthy Northern manufacturers. 
 These charges he indignantly denied, and it was 
 some consolation to be able to insert a letter from 
 a correspondent, who spoke of the undoubted patri 
 otism of the ancestors of the leading Union men, 
 and alluded expressly to the fact that the grand 
 father of W. G. Simms was one of the hostages 
 sent by the British to St. Augustine during the 
 Revolution. 1 
 
 But ancestral pride was of little avail in face of 
 the fact that subscriptions were running short and 
 debts being incurred to keep the paper going. To 
 make matters worse Duryea died on the 25th of 
 March, 1832, and on the 9th of April the "Ga 
 zette " appeared, with Simms as sole editor and pro- 
 
 1 As the maternal grandfather of Mr. Simms was just of age 
 in 1780 and as Doctor Ramsay's list of the hostages contains the 
 name of Thomas, and not of John Singleton, it is reasonable to in 
 fer that the patriotic ancestor referred to was our editor's great- 
 grandfather.
 
 66 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 prietor. He struggled on for nearly two months ; 
 then on June 7, it was announced that the paper 
 had been transferred to William Laurens Poole, 
 of Cheraw, who engaged to assume its politics, but 
 not its debts. With respect to these latter, cred 
 itors were politely informed that Simms could be 
 found for the present at the office of his friend Mr. 
 Charles R. Carroll. They doubtless found Simms, 
 but they found him, to use his own expression, 
 "over head and ears in debt," with every desire to 
 meet his obligations, but with little prospect of 
 doing so in the near future.
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 . A VOCATION FOUND. 
 
 PECUNIARY losses were by no means the only 
 troubles Simms had had to contend with in recent 
 years. True, his house at Sutnmerville had been 
 burned down, entailing the loss of all his furniture 
 and of his few heirlooms, the most valuable of 
 which was a picture of his mother. But this, even 
 when taken in connection with his debts, would 
 not have caused such an energetic man to despond 
 for long. But when he found himself a widower 
 and doubly an orphan, through the deaths of his 
 father and grandmother; when he recollected that 
 he had an infant daughter to provide for, and that 
 his friends were both few in number and unpopu 
 lar by reason of their political views, he began to 
 despair in good earnest, and to wonder what new 
 trials Providence had in store for him. 
 
 His father's death took place in Mississippi, 
 March 28, 1830. There is reason to believe that 
 Simms shortly after took a second journey to the 
 Southwest, probably with the view of securing 
 whatever property had been left him. The only 
 known result of the journey is to be found in a few 
 sweet verses published ten years later ; but it can-
 
 68 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 not be doubted that lie freshened and widened his 
 knowledge of the primitive people among whom he 
 sojourned, and that in this way he added to his in 
 tellectual capital, which was now all he had to draw 
 upon. The exact date of Mrs. Gates's death has 
 not been ascertained; it is known, however, that 
 she lived to see the birth of her great-grandchild, 
 and she could not long have survived the elder 
 Simms. The "Gazette" of February 20, 1832, 
 contained an invitation to the funeral of Mrs. 
 Simms, which was to take place from her husband's 
 residence on King-Street-Road, Charleston Neck. 
 The cause of her death is not given ; but the young 
 widower alluded to his loss in more than one set 
 of mournful stanzas. What disposition he made 
 of his child is uncertain, beyond the general fact 
 that she was intrusted to some member of her 
 mother's family. 
 
 The disposition that Simms made of himself was 
 a natural one. Everything that he had tried at 
 Charleston had failed, and now that his political 
 principles were in disrepute, there was still less 
 chance for future success. On all sides disgusted 
 Unionists were setting him the example of quitting 
 the State; even Legare was thinking of abandon 
 ing his literary dictatorship in Charleston for the 
 position of charge d'affaires at Brussels. Simms 
 had fewer domestic ties than any of these men, 
 and his State cared less for him. Why, then, 
 should he stay only to be reminded more and more 
 of his father's prophetic words? But he would
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 60 
 
 not go to the Southwest, as his father had advised. 
 He had already given up much that he might follow 
 his literary bent, and come what would he was 
 resolved to keep on as he had begun. But for a 
 literary aspirant the North and not the Southwest 
 was the proper field. 
 
 It is a pleasure to be able to record an obligation 
 to a gentleman whom every dabbler in American 
 literature, including the present writer, singles out 
 as a proper object for good-natured contempt or for 
 positive scorn. It is the Reverend Mr. Griswold 
 who informs us that, after traveling over the most 
 interesting portions of the North, Simms "paused 
 at the rural village of Hingham in Massachusetts, 
 and there prepared for the press his principal poet 
 ical work, 'Atalantis, a Story of the Sea,' which 
 was published at New York in the following win 
 ter." Griswold got his information in response to a 
 letter which he had addressed to Simms on the sub 
 ject; it is therefore likely to be correct. How and 
 when the young poet got to Hingham is uncertain, 
 but he probably chose it as a good place for work 
 and one fairly safe from the ravages of the cholera. 
 As soon as that danger was nearly over (about the 
 second week in September) he hastened to New 
 York, where he had made, or was about to make, 
 several trusty friends. Chief of these was William 
 Cullen Bryant, who had temporarily removed to 
 Hoboken, in order to get away from the cholera 
 and to be near his friend Sands. Thither Simms 
 came in the afternoons, "and wandered with them
 
 70 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 along the shores, at sunset, or strolled away, up 
 the heights of Weehawken, declaiming the graceful 
 verses of Halleck upon the scene." 1 The intimacy 
 thus begun with Sands was soon cut short by the 
 latter 's premature death, but that with Bryant was 
 continued without interruption for thirty - eight 
 years. It was further cemented by subsequent 
 wanderings along Green River, and by visits to 
 Great Barrington, in Berkshire County, Massa 
 chusetts, where Bryant had once resided, and from 
 which the friends doubtless made frequent excur 
 sions to Stockbridge, to see that exemplary novel 
 ist, Miss Sedgwick. 
 
 Another life friend made at this period was 
 James Lawson, a pleasant Scotchman, seven years 
 older than Simms, but possessing kindred tastes 
 and aspirations in matters of literature and the 
 drama. Lawson was at this time editor of the 
 "Mercantile Advertiser," and was, therefore, in a 
 position to sympathize with the woes of the South 
 ern ex-editor. His experience was also of service 
 in introducing Simms to the latter 's first metro 
 politan publishers, the Harpers, and he kindly 
 consented to see the magnum opus, "Atalantis," 
 through the press. As a bachelor it became him 
 to show the young widower the city, and to intro 
 duce him to his own friends of both sexes. If 
 we may judge from a letter of Simms's, written 
 a few weeks later, the Southerner was true to his 
 nature in paying delicate attentions to more than 
 1 Simms, Southward Ho, Chapter II. fin.
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 71 
 
 one fair maiden of Gotham. He probably wrote 
 in their albums, and he certainly promised to send 
 them barrels of peanuts on his return home. An 
 aesthetically inclined biographer of the old school 
 might have been tempted to write "flowers" for 
 "peanuts," in the above sentence, but nowadays 
 one must go by the record. 
 
 But the theatre was the greatest source of attrac 
 tion to both the friends. ^Lawson had already 
 had a tragedy, "Giordano," acted at the Park 
 Theatre, in 1828, and he was an intimate friend of 
 TCdwin Forrest and of the less known George Hol 
 land. Simms and Forrest were thus brought to 
 gether, though possibly at a later period, and a 
 close friendship was formed between them. He 
 saw and met Holland on this visit, and was one of 
 the enthusiastic crowd that applauded Miss Fanny 
 Kemble when she made her first bow to an Ameri 
 can audience as Bianca, in Milman's "Fazio." 
 
 We do not know what other literary friends 
 Simms made on this first visit to New York. He 
 afterwards came so regularly that he became ac 
 quainted or intimate with nearly all the "literati" 
 that subsequently fell into Poe's clutches. Hav 
 ing little or nothing to do on these visits besides 
 correcting proofs, he spent his mornings in edito 
 rial offices and his evenings, when the theatre did 
 not attract him, at literary receptions and snug 
 little parties. Naturally he became a well-known 
 figure, and his easy manners and fund of anecdotes 
 gained him many friends. Indeed, he was for
 
 72 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 some time so closely connected with New York that 
 one is almost tempted to regard him as a Knicker 
 bocker author. These facts being premised, his 
 New York friends will be introduced into these 
 pages without formality whenever the necessity 
 shall arise. 
 
 On October 28, 1832, Simms addressed a letter 
 to Lawson from Summerville. He had escaped 
 quarantine, and three days after leaving New York 
 was "at his own fireside, laughing at law and po 
 lice, and bidding them defiance." The Nullifiers 
 were triumphing around him, but he had great 
 hopes of Old Hickory's firmness, and thought that 
 the run -mad theorists would not know what to do 
 with nullification now that they had got it. 
 " Atalantis " was naturally a more important subject 
 to him than politics, and he conjured Lawson to 
 let him know how it was succeeding. His Charles 
 ton friends were in raptures over it. They were 
 welcoming him back with parties every night, but 
 hj would settle down to steady work next week; 
 in the meantime his gun looked inviting, and there 
 were some doves to be seen from his window that 
 were evidently waiting to be shot. 
 
 The only note of sadness in the letter appeared 
 is* the brief mention of the death of a young man 
 with whom Simms had recently traveled, and to 
 whom he had become much attached. This was 
 Maynard D. Richardson, a very stanch opponent 
 of nullification, who, had he lived, might have won 
 some reputation both as a writer and as a politician.
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 73 
 
 Simms dedicated " Atalantis " to him, and the next 
 year (1833) wrote the memoir which was after 
 wards prefixed to a volume of his remains. 
 Whether Simms edited this volume is uncertain, 
 but he probably did; it is at least certain that 
 twelve years later he republished Richardson's best 
 verses in "The Charleston Book." These produc 
 tions show that Simms 's friend was not the least 
 gifted of the ignes minores that lighted Charles 
 ton during the first quarter of this century. 
 
 Meanwhile, our hero had left the provinces, where 
 sooth to say he had been little of a star, and had 
 made his first bow on a metropolitan stage. In 
 plainer terms, he had published, in the "American 
 Quarterly Review " for September, 1832, a fairly 
 sensible, but hurriedly written critique of Mrs. 
 Trollope's " Domestic Manners of the Americans," 
 and about two months later, at the somewhat re 
 luctant hands of the Harpers, the ambitious poem 
 "Atalantis." Griswold tells us that the former 
 production "was reprinted, in several editions, in 
 this country and in England; " the latter seems to 
 have waited until 1848, when it made its second 
 appearance in a new but hardly improved form. 
 
 It is difficult for one who has grown fond of 
 Simms the man to criticise with impartiality this 
 pet creation of Simms the versifier. On the one 
 hand, the fact that posterity has consigned it to ob 
 livion tempts one to ignore the zeal and traces of 
 power that are evident throughout its eighty pages ; 
 on the other, the firm belief that Simms and some
 
 74 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 of his contemporaries had in its greatness tempts 
 one to put on one's spectacles and look for beauties 
 and merits that do not exist. But these tempta 
 tions assail every biographer and critic ; and in the 
 present case there is no great danger that serious 
 injustice will be done. 
 
 " Atalantis " is a story of a sea fairy who is per 
 secuted with the love of a sea demon, but who finally 
 rescues herself, and marries a mortal lover. The 
 scene shifts from the bottom of the sea to the top 
 of an enchanted island and the deck of a Spanish 
 barque. There are good and bad spirits who sing 
 choruses of distinctly iByronic stamp. In brief, 
 from one point of view, Timothy Flint was right 
 when he wrote, in the "Knickerbocker," that "At 
 alantis" was "an eccentric sort of water-witch 
 drama." But from another point of view Camp 
 bell was partially right when he wrote of it as "a 
 well-written poem of a dramatic cast, the versifica 
 tion of which is polished throughout, the characters 
 are sufficiently marked, and the machinery really 
 very beautiful." 1 Flint judged the poem as a 
 whole ; Campbell examined its parts, and saw that 
 its author had considerable literary power. He did 
 not go far enough in his analysis to perceive that 
 this power was that of the prose writer rather than 
 of the poet. 
 
 The truth would seem to be that in "Atalantis" 
 Simms attempted a very difficult task. Only a 
 
 1 In the Metropolitan (London) for January, 1834, page 12, 
 The review is attributed to Campbell by Alliboue.
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 75 
 
 poet like Milton or Shelley, possessing an ima 
 gination of the highest order, could possibly have 
 given life to the characters our rash young author 
 tried to set in motion; and Milton and Shelley 
 would have chosen better material for the exercise 
 of their powers. Most poets would simply have 
 rendered both themselves and their poem ridiculous. 
 It is to Simms's credit that he does not do this, pos 
 sibly because of the sincerity which always charac 
 terized his work. However unformed and wooden 
 his characters, however vague and misty the action 
 of his poem, he, at least, had seen those characters 
 act their parts under the peaceful waters that sur 
 round Charleston's "palm-crowned isles." As a 
 lonely boy, lying on the sands or rowing about the 
 harbor, he had dreamed of fairies and sea nymphs 
 until he almost believed in them. Some of his 
 earliest prose essays took the form of delicately 
 framed fairy tales, and the spirit choruses, and 
 indeed other parts of "Atalantis," had been writ 
 ten for years. It was not his fault that he did not 
 recognize, until he had mixed long with the world, 
 that the day for such things had passed. He had 
 lived practically out of the world, among a prim 
 itive people; and his principal reading had lain 
 among the older poets and the mediaevally inclined 
 romancists, whose day was just beginning to de 
 cline. Nor was it his fault that, like nearly all 
 Southern poets down to Sidney Lanier, he failed 
 to exercise proper control upon his imagination. 
 Self-control is essential to an artist, but there was
 
 76 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 little in Southern life at that time that could teach 
 a man how to control himself. In fact, a self -con 
 trolled man would have been looked upon with dis 
 trust in the South. They believed in inspiration 
 and genius there, not in hard work ; and so the list 
 of Southern geniuses is a very small one. If this 
 be not true, then it is certainly a curious fact that 
 the two greatest Southern writers before 1861, Poe 
 and Simms, were both men who were constantly 
 brought under the sobering influences of the North. 
 The anonymity of " Atalantis " was not long pre 
 served, and the fair success it enjoyed soon tempted 
 its author away from South Carolina to the more 
 literary North. Then, too, although the ferment 
 of nullification had subsided, he felt as Legare did, 
 in Brussels, that it was a "scandalous row," and 
 that it was very well to be out of it. Accordingly 
 we find him, some time in 1833, settled peacefully at 
 New Haven and meditating what literary work he 
 should undertake besides his present task of writing 
 short stories and poems for the magazines. At 
 length it occurred to him that he had a bundle of 
 manuscript that might be turned to some account. 
 He had published in the "Southern Literary Ga 
 zette" a story, partly founded on facts, entitled 
 "Confessions of a Murderer." While editing his 
 daily newspaper, he had taken up this story and 
 elaborated it. Now, in New Haven, he determined 
 to make a book of it. Such is the genesis of his 
 first prose work, "Martin Faber," for his know 
 ledge of which and for many particulars to follow,
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 77 
 
 the reader may consider himself indebted to certain 
 "Personal and Literary Memorials," scribbled off 
 by the young author on the fourth day of June, 
 1834, while he was smarting under the stupidity 
 and malignity of some of his early critics. 
 
 When "Martin Faber" was finished, Simms 
 contracted with Babcock, a New Haven publisher, 
 to have a thousand copies printed at his own risk. 
 When six or eight sheets had been printed, he in 
 closed them to the Harpers, saying that they might 
 have the book "on their own terms, they assuming 
 the cost of printing and all the risk and trouble of 
 publication." This modest proposal was accepted, 
 and the story was published at once, probably in 
 September. It had a fine run. In four days, only 
 one copy was left, which was reserved for the 
 author, who likewise received one hundred dollars, 
 greatly to his delight. 
 
 One might imagine that he continued, for a few 
 days at least, to be fairly happy ; but such was not 
 the case, as his own words shall testify : 
 
 "But, as I have said, the period of its publica 
 tion was a period to me of bitter excitement. I 
 had set out to produce an original book, and flat 
 tered myself to have succeeded; what, then, was 
 my surprise to perceive, in several of the newspa 
 pers, notices, which, though in all respects highly 
 favorable, yet charged the work with a glaring re 
 semblance to ' Miserrimus, ' 1 a work then only re 
 cently put forth in England, which, until after this 
 1 By F. M. Reynolds.
 
 78 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 period, I had never read, and a few of the leaves 
 only of which I had glanced over in the bookstore 
 of Mr. Maltby at New Haven. The misfortune of 
 ' Martin Faber ' consisted in being about the same 
 length with ' Miserrimus, ' in being printed in sim 
 ilar form, with similar binding, and in comprising, 
 like the work to which it bore so unhappy a re 
 semblance, the adventures of a bad man. There 
 was not a solitary incident, not a paragraph, alike 
 in the two productions ; and a vital difference be 
 tween the two was notorious enough in the fact 
 that the criminal in ' Miserrimus ' was such, with 
 out any obvious or reasonable cause, while ' Martin 
 Faber ' from the first sets out with an endeavor to 
 show how and why he became a criminal, and has 
 a reason for his offenses. ' Miserrimus, ' on the 
 other hand, does his evil deeds wantonly, and sim 
 ply because of a morbid perversity of mind, which 
 could only have its sanction in insanity. They all 
 praised, however, to a certain extent, some of them 
 evidently without reading it." 
 
 After this na'ive vindication of himself, Mr. 
 Simms mentions a favorable criticism by Charles 
 Fenno Hoffman, in the New York "American," and 
 a notice by Flint, in the "Knickerbocker," wherein 
 the hero was pronounced to be unnatural, and the 
 story to be horrible, though powerful. But here 
 the youthful author confounded his critic by point 
 ing out that Flint himself, in the same number of 
 the magazine, had translated a French story, the 
 sub-title of which was "The Butcher of Girls."
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 79 
 
 Yet Simms could defend himself in less peaceable 
 ways, as the following incident plainly shows. 
 
 On the Monday after "Martin Faber " was pub 
 lished, he called on the Harpers, who referred to 
 the criticism in the "American," and asked if he 
 knew Hoffman. Receiving a prompt negative, 
 they showed some surprise, which they explained 
 by stating that a Doctor Langtree had said that 
 Simms and Hoffman were bosom friends, which 
 accounted for the favorable nature of the latter 's 
 criticism. On this slight provocation our warm 
 blooded author grew angry, and, after getting fur 
 ther proofs, proceeded, in company with his friend 
 Randell Hunt, 1 to call upon the talkative physi 
 cian. Langtree (Samuel Daly Langtree, afterwards 
 editor of the "Knickerbocker") rather evaded 
 Simms 's questions by answering that he had not 
 read "Martin Faber." Whereupon Simms de 
 manded a statement in writing of what had really 
 been said. Langtree declining, the fiery author 
 would have proceeded to violent measures, had not 
 his friend Hunt interposed and induced Langtree 
 to write his denial. When Langtree begged that 
 the paper should be shown to the Harpers only, 
 Simms declared that he would show it to anybody. 
 He forthwith took it to Mr. Peabody, publisher of 
 the "Knickerbocker," who had heard Langtree 's 
 remarks. Peabody, with an eye to business, advised 
 him to publish the statement, as it would sell his 
 
 1 An ardent anti-nullifier afterwards a successful lawyer in 
 Louisiana.
 
 80 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 book, to which Simms replied that he was a gen 
 tleman before he was an author. 
 
 This trivial incident has been recorded with mi 
 nuteness because it is very characteristic of the 
 man and of his section. He felt even then that he 
 was among a people who did not understand him, 
 and he made the mistake, so often made by his com 
 patriots, of thinking that he must be aggressive in 
 order to keep from being imposed upon. Natu 
 rally he was less understood than before ; and with 
 equal reason those who observed and criticised 
 his action failed to see how thoroughly in keeping 
 it was with the influences that had been brought 
 to bear upon him since his birth. From just such 
 trivial incidents Northerners and Southerners used 
 to judge one another ; and we cannot be too thank 
 ful for the fact that there are now forces at work 
 which will enable the two sections to form their fu 
 ture judgments on far more reasonable and tenable 
 grounds. The subject may be dismissed with the 
 remark that when Doctor Langtree succeeded Flint 
 in the editorship of the "Knickerbocker," he was 
 able to pay off his score against Simms by some 
 rather irritating criticisms. 
 
 Simms has now been heard on the subject of his 
 first venture in prose fiction, has, in fact, been al 
 lowed to criticise himself. A modern reader would 
 hardly agree with him in his estimate of his own 
 work, in spite of the fact that Poe subsequently 
 praised it. For, however original Simms may have
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 81 
 
 thought himself, and however real the facts upon 
 which his story was based, one has little diffi 
 culty in seeing that he was simply following, with 
 hops and jumps, the devious, dark, and uncanny 
 paths where Godwin had once walked with a stately 
 tread. It is true that he not infrequently takes a 
 leap that would be impossible to a man not en 
 dowed with strength and activity, but one's admi 
 ration of his agility is not sufficient to make one 
 follow him willingly. But one does follow him, 
 willy-nilly, and therefore those critics were right 
 who, while observing his indebtedness to Godwin, 
 and while expostulating against his jerky style 
 and his extravagances of character and action, 
 nevertheless saw in him promise of future power 
 and usefulness. Simms, as we have seen, felt no 
 great love toward these critics, and when "Martin 
 Faber " was reissued in 1834, he wrote a preface 
 which, from its lengthy animadversions upon his 
 reviewers, was enough to make his readers fear that 
 a second Cooper, as unamiable as the first and cer 
 tainly less able, had been added to American liter 
 ature. But he felt their strictures sufficiently to 
 omit "Martin Faber" from the revised edition of 
 his works, issued twenty years later. 
 
 There is no need at this late day to criticise mi 
 nutely the story of a criminal who out-fathoms 
 Count Fathom, and throws Jonathan Wild in the 
 shade. Poe was doubtless attracted by its grue- 
 someness, and by the way in which Simms de 
 veloped some circumstantial evidence. A modern
 
 82 . WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 lover of Mr. Browning might still find some plea 
 sure in contrasting the crude horror of Faber's last 
 hours in prison with the great poet's more artistic 
 presentation of the last moments of Count Guido. 
 But most readers of the present day would turn 
 with loathing from the book; and few would read 
 far enough to note the early appearance of a fault 
 which was to mar all of Simms's future work, 
 careless inattention to details, consequent upon hur 
 ried writing. What is one to say of an author who 
 describes a brilliant and fashionable wedding as 
 occurring in a stagnated village of some sixty fam 
 ilies? or of one who gives the same village an art 
 gallery, where exhibitions are held yearly with a 
 hundred pictures lining the wall? 
 
 Shortly after the publication of "Martin Faber," 
 Simms seems to have taken a trip to Philadelphia, 
 in company with Timothy Flint, and there to have 
 made arrangements for the speedy appearance of 
 another book, a collection of short tales entitled 
 "The Book of My Lady." These stories, most of 
 which had previously seen the light in magazines, 
 deserve only one brief comment. Some of them 
 show that Simms was master at times of a prose 
 style which, if not charming, might nevertheless 
 have been made with a little pains distinctly grace 
 ful. Unfortunately as the years went by, and as 
 the temptation to do hurried work became less easy 
 to resist, his style lost these early traces of pleasing 
 qualities, and was never more than a serviceable 
 style with some strength, but with a constant ten-
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 83 
 
 dency to become slipshod. It may also be men 
 tioned that many of the tales in this collection were 
 subsequently republished in various forms; for 
 Simms, like Poe, was a great believer in the abil 
 ity of the public to swallow any amount of rehashed 
 work. 
 
 The year 1834 probably found Simms again in 
 New York, since his first elaborate romance, " Guy 
 Rivers," demanded his presence as proof-reader. 
 Charleston, meanwhile, had not treated him much 
 more kindly, for some time in 1833 he had at 
 tempted to start there a new publication somewhat 
 after the order of "Salmagundi," and had dismally 
 failed. This was "The Cosmopolitan: an Occa 
 sional," which seems not to have got beyond its 
 first number. In his "debut " Simms professed to 
 be one of a club of three, whose lucubrations were 
 intended to furnish material for the new magazine. 
 But in all probability he was the sole writer of the 
 stories and chit-chat criticism which made up the 
 contents of what might have been called more prop 
 erly "The Provincial." 
 
 "Guy Rivers " was published toward the last of 
 July, 1834, and immediately enjoyed a great run. 
 A London reprint, in three volumes, appeared the 
 next year. Magazines and newspapers vied with 
 each other in extravagant praise of the new South 
 ern author. The "Mirror" declared that at last 
 America had produced a writer whose women char 
 acters were not mere sticks, like those of Cooper 
 and Brockden Brown. The "American Monthly "
 
 84 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 made the astounding and somewhat enigmatical 
 discovery that, while Cooper and Scott were mere 
 novelists of matter, Simms was a novelist of mind. 
 The "Knickerbocker" and the "New England 
 Magazine " followed suit, and it was not until 
 December of the same year that the dull "Ameri 
 can Quarterly " found courage enough to point out 
 with some severity the obvious and great faults of 
 a book over which so many people had been raving. 
 But this voice of dissent did not prevent the work 
 from passing through three editions in little over a 
 year ; and Simms went back to Charleston to begin 
 a new novel, with the comfortable feeling that his 
 bank account had been increased by several hun 
 dred dollars. But in Charleston he still found him 
 self a nobody, and he bitterly contrasted the warmth 
 of the North with the coldness of the South, regard 
 less of the fact that in the case of prophets the 
 laws of temperature do not hold. Yet one old 
 Charleston merchant thought enough of "Guy 
 Rivers " and its author to offer to send the young 
 man to Europe for study and travel, an offer 
 which Simms 's sturdy independence forced him to 
 decline, although a visit to Europe had naturally 
 been one of his dearest dreams. He doubtless 
 thought then that he would one day be able to 
 gratify his desire, but the day never came. 
 
 Returning now to " Guy Rivers," it may be noted 
 that Simms does not seem to have been without a 
 high opinion of his own importance at this period. 
 Having been disgusted by some of the criticisms
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 85 
 
 which Harpers' reader had bestowed on "Martin 
 Faber," he made it a condition to the publication 
 of his new romance that it should pass through no 
 reader's hands. It is a pity that it did not. If it 
 had, Simms would have had fewer alterations to 
 make in his revised edition of twenty years later, 
 and his besetting sin of hurried writing would have 
 been brought forcibly to his mind at a very impor 
 tant juncture. As it was, the popular favor which 
 could be commanded by a crude performance 
 tempted him to the rapid publication of much 
 equally crude and often more feeble work. 
 
 No one called " Guy Rivers " feeble. In spite 
 of its stilted style and its wooden characters, there 
 was a bustle and movement about it that interested 
 an uncritical public. Even now one feels a desire 
 to know what new adventures the rather priggish 
 young hero will fall into and what new villainies 
 Guy Rivers, the outlaw, will commit. It mattered 
 little to a public which was soon to go into raptures 
 over "Norman Leslie " whether Simms's aristo 
 cratic hero and heroine really represented the up 
 per classes of his native State. That hero fell into 
 all sorts of traps set by his villain enemy, barely 
 escaped being unjustly hanged for murder, and 
 wound up by marrying his sweetheart and nearly 
 breaking the heart of the young girl of low origin 
 who had saved his life and fallen in love with him. 
 Surely here was enough to interest a public which 
 had grown rather tired of Cooper's Indians and of 
 the thin humor of Paulding's pleasant but unexcit-
 
 86 WILLIAM GILNOEE SIMMS. 
 
 ing tales. Even Dr. Bird's "Calavar," orthodox 
 and slightly dull romance though it was, could be 
 read with pleasure for a change, Flint's "Francis 
 Berrian " being long since forgotten. But was not 
 Georgia at the time of the gold fever a more Amer 
 ican subject than Mexico even at the time of a higher 
 gold fever? Undiluted Americanism was what 
 many readers were crying for, and they got it in 
 "Guy Rivers;" excitement, sentimentality, bom 
 bast were what others were crying for, and they got 
 all three in "Guy Rivers." What wonder, then, 
 that the book was popular? Would any of these 
 readers smile over such a sentence as "her lips 
 quivered convulsively, and an unbidden but not 
 painful suffusion overspread the warm brilliance of 
 her soft fair cheeks"? or would they care a straw 
 whether Simms quoted Garrick's lines on Quin 
 correctly or incorrectly? It is even doubtful 
 whether they were disgusted when Colleton, the 
 hero, insisted that Lucy Munro, the poor girl who 
 loved him with a devotion which constitutes the 
 single element of charm in the book, should come 
 to live with him and her successful rival, a prop 
 osition, by the way, which had T)een made in a still 
 more startling fashion by Shelley to his first wife 
 Harriet. 
 
 But, as has been said, these uncritical readers 
 were right in holding that the author of "Guy 
 Rivers " was a man of ability. They were right in 
 saying that he knew how to tell a story without al 
 lowing its interest to flag. They felt, moreover,
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 87 
 
 that he had opened a new world to them, a 
 world lying near their very doors in that year of 
 our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-four; not 
 an old world separated from them by thousands of 
 miles of ocean and by centuries of time. They 
 preferred a South Carolina aristocrat and slave 
 owner to a worn-out English lord ; and an outlaw 
 fighting the Georgia militia in true backwoods 
 fashion to a robber baron of the Middle Ages. 
 They had no objection to the author's building up 
 his new-world romance out of the stock materials 
 of the old-world romancer. They took the solitary 
 horseman, the desperate villain, the impeccable 
 hero, the haughty highborn maiden, as a matter of 
 course, but they saw something new in the rough 
 proceedings of the regulators with the Yankee ped 
 dler, in the conflict of the squatters with the militia, 
 in the primitive forms which backwoods justice 
 and religion had taken on. They had found an 
 author, too, who could describe in a lively way the 
 wild and picturesque scenery of a virgin country, and 
 who was quite successful in his delineation of strike 
 ing and original characters drawn from the hum 
 bler walks of life. That he painted with broad 
 strokes was a matter of no concern to people who 
 had not become accustomed to minute and almost 
 photographic studies of the life of a narrow region. 
 Little more need be said of this unequal produc 
 tion. It was destined to form the first of a series 
 of romances generally known as Simms's "border 
 romances," a series which has been reprinted sev-
 
 88 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 eral times, and which is still read. The same mer 
 its and faults which are to be found in " Guy Riv 
 ers " are to be found in them all, and they will 
 therefore require hereafter little more than a mere 
 mention in the order of their publication. All are 
 successful in representing striking phases of back 
 woods life ; and they give one a better idea of that 
 curious stage of existence, viewed as a whole, than 
 the contemporary stories of Judge James Hall, or 
 of the pseudonymous Sealsfield l (Karl Postel). 
 Sealsfield, indeed, gives the humorous side of the 
 life he is describing better than Simms does, but 
 the latter's work is less sketchy and more compre 
 hensive. Again, all these romances are more or 
 less readable on account of their rapid movement. 
 No matter whether we like the characters or not, we 
 cannot resist being carried along by the action. 
 There is not enough moralizing or prosy descrip 
 tion to stop us, for we are not too conscientious to 
 skip. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that 
 these "border romances," the scenes of which are 
 laid in nearly all the Southwestern States, are some 
 times as rough in their construction as the people 
 described were in their manners and customs. 
 All are marred by a slipshod style, by a repetition 
 of incidents, and by the introduction of an unne 
 cessary amount of the horrible and the revolting. 
 Some of Simms 's critics used to object to the lavish 
 
 1 Sealsfield is said to have copied whole pages from Guy Rivers 
 in one of his stories. This is an exaggeration. Cf . The Courtship 
 of Ralph Doughby, Esquire, chap, i., with Guy Rivers, chap. vi.
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 89 
 
 oaths put in the mouths of his characters, to which 
 he was wont to reply that he could not change for 
 the better a backwoodsman's vocabulary. But he 
 might have avoided, at least, introducing brutal 
 murders not necessary to the action of the story, 
 and he might have remembered that a good artist 
 is not called upon to exercise his powers upon sub 
 jects not proper to his art, simply because such sub 
 jects belong to the realm of the real and the natu 
 ral. He might have remembered that nobility is 
 that quality of a romance which is essential to its 
 permanence; and that the fact that he was de 
 scribing accurately the life of a people whom he 
 thoroughly understood would not alone preserve 
 his work for the general reader. When all is said, 
 one is forced to wish that Simms had written fewer 
 or none of these stories, and that he had spent the 
 time thus saved in polishing the really excellent 
 historical romances which will be discussed pres 
 ently. But he had to make a living, and the public 
 liked sensational tales, so there is great excuse for 
 him. 
 
 The "Mirror "for August 2, 1834, announced to 
 its readers that Mr. Simms, encouraged by the 
 brilliant success of "Guy Rivers," had "already 
 commenced the plot of another American novel." 
 He was not a man to let the grass grow under his 
 feet, and by the spring of the next year he was 
 back in New York with the completed or nearly 
 completed manuscript of what was destined to be 
 the most widely read of all of his romances. We
 
 90 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 have already seen how the early history of Carolina 
 had laid hold on his imagination ; it was only nat 
 ural, therefore, that having used up most of the ma 
 terials furnished by his juvenile essays in story- 
 writing (for "Guy Rivers," like "Martin Faber," 
 was but the elaboration of a tale begun in his youth), 
 he should be tempted to give up the role of acting 
 interpreter to murderers and outlaws, and to under 
 take the higher role of revealing to the world, 
 through the pages of an historical romance, the 
 wealth of beauty and charm hidden away in the 
 chronicles and traditions of his native State. But 
 of these chronicles and traditions none were more 
 interesting than those that told of that great upris 
 ing of the Yemassee Indians that went so near de 
 stroying the infant colony. Already, as a youthful 
 poet, he had sung the dirge of the last of these brave 
 people; now, ripened in years and in historical 
 knowledge, and flushed with recent success, he de 
 termined to do justice to the heroism of this well- 
 nigh forgotten tribe and to the bravery and reso 
 lution of the early Carolinians, in a romance which 
 could have no more fitting title than the name 
 which had once struck terror into many a heart, 
 but which was now vanished from the earth. 
 
 With a rapid writer like Simms seven months 
 was ample time in which to finish a work of ordi 
 nary length. The stores of information on which 
 he could draw were unusually large for a man of 
 his age. He had not only read deeply in the 
 printed and manuscript sources of his State's his-
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 91 
 
 tory, but he had collected from oral sources a fund 
 of legends and anecdotes which were carefully 
 noted down in a commonplace book. He had also 
 familiarized himself with the physical aspects of 
 the country in which the scene of his romance was 
 to lie; and he had never omitted an opportunity 
 for studying Indian character, whether by means 
 of books, or of personal observation. From the day 
 when he saw scores of drunken and naked Creeks 
 lying about the streets of Mobile, he was thor 
 oughly alive to all their vices ; but from the time 
 of his sojourns in both Creek and Cherokee "Na 
 tions," he had also been fully conscious of their 
 many undeniable virtues. He was not likely, 
 therefore, to make the mistake Dr. Bird after 
 wards made in "Nick of the Woods," of dwelling 
 exclusively on the darker side of their character; 
 nor was he likely to err with Cooper, if indeed that 
 can be considered an error which has given us such 
 characters as Uncas and Chingachgook, in exag 
 gerating their good qualities. In short, he was ad 
 mirably equipped for the work he had undertaken 
 save in one respect, his lack of an artist's power 
 of self-control. 
 
 "The Yemassee " was issued in the mid-spring of 
 1835. The first edition, although twice as large as 
 usual, was exhausted in three days. Before the 
 end of the year it had caught up with " Guy Riv 
 ers," and was in its third American and first Eng 
 lish edition. Like the latter romance it was much 
 bepraised, but a few editors thought it necessary to
 
 92 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 be critical enough to let the young writer see that 
 his work was by no means perfect. The " Amer 
 ican Quarterly," in particular, though not going to 
 the lengths it had gone in the case of " Guy Riv 
 ers," gave the author some very wholesome advice 
 which he could well have afforded to follow. 
 
 In his new romance Simms was, of course, fol 
 lowing, afar off, in the footsteps of Scott and 
 Cooper. Inasmuch as there are considerable dif 
 ferences between these writers, his work squints 
 two ways. In his description of the brave and 
 handsome Governor Craven, who mingles in dis 
 guise among the doughty frontiersmen, and, as 
 Captain Gabriel Harrison, foils Indians and pi 
 rates, and wins the love of the fair Bess Matthews, 
 daughter of the strict old Puritan preacher, he is 
 undoubtedly following Scott. In his description 
 of the noble Sanutee, the well-beloved of the Ye- 
 massees, and of his wife Matiwan and their son 
 Occonestoga ; in his animated account of the attack 
 on the block-house, and of Harrison's adventures 
 in the Indian village, he is as undoubtedly follow 
 ing Cooper. In his description of trackless swamp 
 and sluggish river, of the deadly serpent lurking 
 in the centre of luxuriant groves, of the faithful slave 
 who will not accept his freedom, he strikes out for 
 himself, and proves that he has a right to a distinct 
 place among American men of letters. But when 
 he wearies his readers with hairbreadth escapes, 
 with tedious love-scenes, and with the affected hu 
 mor of very lack-humorous characters; when he
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 93 
 
 is careless in his grammar and pompous in his dic 
 tion, one confesses with a sigh that it is his own 
 fault that his position as a writer is not more se 
 cure. Yet it might be more true to say that he 
 owes the place he has to the fact that he was a pa 
 triotic Southerner, with a keen eye for the charm 
 and beauty of Southern life and character; and 
 that he owes the fact that he never rose to the front 
 rank, even of his own country's writers, to the 
 limitations imposed upon him by his Southern birth. 
 It would be tedious to detail the main features of 
 the plot of a story which can be had in a cheap 
 form, and which ought to be read by all conscien 
 tious students of American literature, as well as by 
 those thousands of readers who are daily devouring 
 much worse novels. It is sufficient to say that the 
 action is fairly sustained in spite of certain tedious 
 prosings on the part of the minor characters, and 
 that in the three chief Indian personages, Sanutee, 
 who is the soul of the uprising of his people, and 
 who dies with them in their defeat, Matiwan, his 
 wife, the loveliest and purest Indian woman that I 
 have met with in fiction, and Occonestoga, their 
 unfortunate son, Simms shows a power of charac 
 terization which his earlier work did not warrant 
 his readers in expecting, and which his subsequent 
 work scarcely maintained. One scene, indeed, 
 between these characters seems to call for special 
 mention. I refer to the twenty -fifth chapter, in 
 which Occonestoga is saved from the evil demon of 
 his tribe by the desperate devotion of Matiwan, his
 
 94 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 mother. There is a concentration of power con 
 spicuous in this entire chapter which is hardly to 
 be found in the pages of the two American ro 
 mancers who are in most respects Simms's supe 
 riors, Cooper and Brockden Brown. None of 
 Simms's work was destined to display the sustained 
 energy that characterizes " The Last of the Mohi 
 cans," or the weird intensity of power that makes 
 "Wieland" memorable. But in this one scene he 
 showed what he could do in spite of the defects of 
 his Southern qualities. Yet, although the defense 
 of the block-house and the charming of Bess Mat 
 thews by the rattlesnake have been made fairly fa 
 miliar by school readers and volumes of selections, 
 this admirable scene has been passed over in al 
 most complete silence. 
 
 The success of "The Yemassee " naturally 
 prompted Simms to attempt another historical 
 romance, and the example of Kennedy's "Horse- 
 Shoe Kobinson," besides his own interest in the 
 period, was enough to determine him to lay the 
 scene of his next volume in the troublous times of 
 the Revolution. Accordingly, "The Southern 
 Literary Messenger " for August, 1835, announced 
 that he would soon be delivered of a new romance, 
 and late in the same year The "Partisan" was 
 published. But as "The Partisan" was intended 
 to form the first number of a trilogy, and as this 
 chapter is getting rather long, it will be proper to 
 postpone for a space the discussion of its merits. 
 
 Simms's vocation has now been found, but it
 
 A VOCATION FOUND. 95 
 
 will not be well to close this chapter without re 
 ferring to his second marriage. It can be seen 
 from a notice prefixed to " The Partisan," that on 
 July 1, 1835, its author was at Barnwell, South 
 Carolina. Now not many miles distant from that 
 place was a plantation called Woodlands, whereat 
 resided a certain Mr. Nash Roach and his only 
 daughter Chevillette. It is to be shrewdly sus 
 pected that Mr. Simms had some other business 
 at Barnwell than writing romances; for on No 
 vember 18th of the following year, he wrote to his 
 friend Lawson that he was once more happily mar 
 ried, and to this very Miss Chevillette Roach. A 
 description of this lady and her father, and of the 
 life Simms was destined to lead at their pleasant 
 plantation, will form a fitting introduction to a 
 new chapter.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 
 
 MR. NASH ROACH, the father of Simms's second 
 wife, was a well-to-do gentleman of English extrac 
 tion. His father had emigrated from Bristol to 
 Charleston, and had laid the foundations of a 
 considerable fortune, which the son had probably 
 increased, for Woodlands was not his only plan 
 tation. Mr. Roach was about forty-four at the 
 time of his daughter's marriage, and a widower. 
 His wife is said to have been the child of a Colonel 
 Chevillette, one of Frederick the Great's soldiers; 
 certainly it was Mrs. Simms's pride to show to her 
 visitors letters from that monarch to her grandfa 
 ther, strongly encouraging the culture of the grape 
 in South Carolina. Of Mrs. Simms herself little 
 can be learned, save that she was an admirable 
 mother and stepmother, and that all who knew her 
 were fond of her. She was doubtless an excellent 
 example of that charming type of the affectionate 
 and domestic woman which it has been the good 
 fortune of the South to produce in all periods of its 
 existence. 
 
 Those of Simms's numerous visitors at Wood 
 lands, who have recorded their impressions, have
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCES. 97 
 
 said little of Mr. Roach and his daughter, but 
 enough of the house and of its quasi owner for 
 Mr. Roach gave Simms carte blanche in the matter 
 of entertaining, and grew to depend upon him in all 
 things as the years went by to enable us to form 
 a fair conception of the conditions under which most 
 of our author's future work was done. Of these 
 visitors the most conspicuous were William Cullen 
 Bryant, G. P. R. James, John R. Thompson, and 
 Paul Hayne. But though this list is small, the 
 number of visitors was large, for hardly any North 
 ern gentleman who could get an introduction, or 
 of whose coming South Simms could hear, failed 
 to stop at Woodlands, to pay his respects. The 
 plantation was within easy walking distance but 
 what expected guest would be allowed to walk even 
 a hundred yards to a Southerner's house? of 
 Midway, a station which, as its name implied, was 
 the half-way stop between Charleston and Augusta. 
 Hence visitors found it accessible, and as Simms 
 was known far and wide for his hospitality, 
 Woodlands was seldom without a guest. 
 
 The house itself was a large and comfortable 
 brick building, with an odd-looking portico in front 
 spacious enough to allow Simms to promenade in 
 bad weather. One of the largest rooms on the lower 
 floor was reserved for the library and study, and 
 here most of the romances to be mentioned in this 
 chapter were written. The library was well chosen, 
 and at the time of the war numbered about ten 
 thousand volumes, a very large library for the
 
 98 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 South. Simms was a born reader and a book 
 fancier, but many of his books came from pub 
 lishers who desired to secure a notice from his 
 pen. The dining room, that very important part 
 of a Southerner's house, was in close proximity to 
 the study, and thither Simms and his guests were 
 wont to repair before the early dinner, in order to 
 mix a toddy. The toddy disposed of, they sat 
 down to a table loaded with good things, most of 
 which came from the plantation or from the neigh 
 boring river, the Edisto. Over this table Simms 
 presided with a hearty hospitality. He let his 
 guests eat while he himself told anecdote after an 
 ecdote, taking off "the peculiar dialect and tones 
 of the various characters introduced, whether sand- 
 lapper, backwoodsman, half-breed, or negro." 
 Sometimes he declaimed his own poetiy or that of 
 others; sometimes he discoursed on topics of liter 
 ature or art with a vehemence and insistence which 
 left his guests little room to get in a word. Some 
 afterwards revenged themselves by saying that 
 Simms could declaim only, not converse; but his 
 friends excused him, and compared him to Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 Dinner over, cigars were produced, although 
 Simms himself did not begin to smoke until after 
 he was forty. He had promised his father not to 
 use tobacco, and he began its use only in order to 
 counteract a tendency to corpulency. Smoking 
 being ended, guests were at liberty to take a nap, 
 or to drive, ride, or walk through the picturesque
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 99 
 
 neighborhood. The Northerners generally went 
 first to the quarters, to satisfy their curiosity with 
 regard to the South' s peculiar institution. They 
 found about sixty or seventy slaves living by fam 
 ilies in comfortable cabins, each with a plot of 
 ground on which the occupants could raise poultry 
 and vegetables. These productions were after 
 wards sold to Simms or Mr. Roach for prices which 
 seem to have astonished one frugal visitor (Law- 
 son). This same guest saw one negro man who 
 had just returned from consulting a physician in 
 Charleston, Simms, of course, having paid the cost 
 of the trip. If it happened to be Christmas time, 
 the guest was likely to be awakened early by the 
 sound of sweet singing, blended with tones from 
 numerous banjos; and if he had arisen he would 
 have seen Simms, though the latter, being a late 
 worker, was no early riser, standing in the porch 
 distributing all sorts of presents to all sorts and 
 conditions of grinning and grateful darkies. And 
 unless he were a thinker not easily misled by 
 appearances, he might have gone back to bed 
 with the conviction that slavery was after all not 
 such a bad institution. So, at least, declared 
 one Northern visitor in a letter that has been 
 preserved. But although slavery at Woodlands 
 was as harmless as it could be anywhere, a 
 thoughtful man like Bryant, though fully recog 
 nizing the kindly treatment his friend's slaves 
 received, could find no reason to change his anti- 
 slavery principles.
 
 100 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 The quarters having been visited, the guest could 
 take a ride through majestic forests of oaks or 
 pines along bridle paths of hard white sand. He 
 would pass by fields of cotton or maize, or by 
 swamps filled with cypresses, at whose roots the al 
 ligator reposed. If he knew anything of his host's 
 poetry he would recall "The Edge of the Swamp," 
 and think that Simms had described the uncanny 
 place with some little power. A boat horn might 
 remind him that this was the season when the lum 
 bermen went down the Edisto on their rafts, and 
 he might ride on to see them pass by; or, if he 
 were a fisherman, he might go to select a proper 
 spot for angling, on the morrow, for the famous 
 Edisto "cat." In short, there was much for a 
 horseman to explore, and he would not, in all prob 
 ability, have thought of the loneliness of the neigh 
 borhood. 
 
 If, however, the guest were, like his host, not 
 much inclined to take exercise, he could find plenty 
 to interest him in the grounds immediately sur 
 rounding the house. He could admire Simms's 
 taste as a landscape gardener, or he could take his 
 book and go out for a seat in the grape-vine swing, 
 which his host had celebrated in a song. A won 
 derful swing he would have found it, for the vine 
 had drooped its festoons, one below another, in such 
 a way that half a dozen persons (so says an appar 
 ently veracious traveler) could find a comfortable 
 seat, and yet not one of them be sitting on a level 
 with his neighbor, nay, could not only sit, but could
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. . 101 
 
 hold a book in one hand and reach ripe grapes with 
 the other. 
 
 But enough for the present of the charms of 
 Woodlands during the fall and winter months. 
 In summer the place was untenantable, but that 
 was the very time that Simms liked to visit Charles 
 ton and the North. At Woodlands he could live 
 with safety from October to May, and there he 
 could write his books and see his friends. Not 
 being primarily a planter, he could sit up late in 
 his study and then take his time about rising. 
 But when he did rise, he went straight to work at 
 his desk, and wrote with unceasing rapidity until 
 dinner time. Visitors were told to scour the coun 
 try, go hunting or fishing, or else pass the time 
 with a book or a cigar ; Simms himself must finish 
 thirty pages of manuscript in the morning, or else 
 make it up at night, in addition to his heavy cor 
 respondence. If the visitor sat quiet, as Paul 
 Hayne was wont to do, watching the rapid pen 
 move over the sheets until Simms exclaimed, " Near 
 dinner time, old boy, what say you to a glass of 
 sherry and bitters?" then it was likely that the 
 study would be abandoned for the rest of the day, 
 and that after supper would come a rubber of whist, 
 or a long conversation on the portico about litera 
 ture or metaphysics, a subject in which Simms 
 liked to dabble, with how much success no one will 
 now determine. But this life, however charming, 
 was not Simms 's whole life, and it must be left for 
 other things.
 
 102 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 In our eagerness to get Mr. Simms married be 
 fore finishing our last chapter, we were compelled 
 to pass over a space of fourteen months of consid 
 erable literary activity. Now that we have him 
 quietly settled at Woodlands, it will be well to 
 retrace our steps and recover the lost trail of the 
 author. It has been stated that after the great 
 success of "The Yemassee" Simms went to work 
 with redoubled energy on another historical ro 
 mance, "The Partisan," which was published in 
 the fall of 1835. A year later he was again in 
 New York with another revolutionary romance, the 
 second in his proposed series of three, entitled 
 "Mellichampe: a Legend of the Santee." After 
 revising the proof sheets of this last production, he 
 went to South Carolina, and was married. 
 
 In addition to this work he became the chief con 
 tributor to a new publication that aspired to repre 
 sent the literary talent of Charleston. This was 
 the "Southern Literary Journal," a small monthly 
 magazine which was begun in September, 1835, 
 under the editorship of a certain Daniel K. Whit- 
 aker, a New Englander by birth, but connected with 
 the South by a long, though inconspicuous literary 
 career. Simms does not seem to have liked Whit- 
 aker personally, an unusual fact in his case, but 
 this could not keep him from aiding an enterprise 
 that promised to develop Southern literature. But 
 Charleston was destined to be a graveyard for mag 
 azines, and Simms alone could not keep one going, 
 or counteract the deadly effects of the sentimental
 
 A PEOLIFIC ROMANCER. 103 
 
 poetry showered upon Whitaker by local scribblers. 
 Sooth to say, his own contributions seem to have 
 been the offscourings of his desk, and in many re 
 spects worthy of the company they had to keep. 
 It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that by the 
 spring of 1839 the "Southern Literary Journal " 
 had ceased to exist. 
 
 There was another reason for its demise. The 
 South could not possibly support more than one 
 respectable magazine, and that one had already 
 been begun at Richmond by Thomas W. White, in 
 August, 1834. At the very time Whitaker began 
 his publication, the "Southern Literary Messen 
 ger " was being edited by the ablest man of letters 
 of whom the South, with not an absolutely perfect 
 claim, could boast, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe soon 
 gave his journal a position which enabled it to 
 drag on a weary existence long after he himself and 
 White, the founder, had relinquished all interest in 
 it, the one on account of his bad habits, the other 
 on account of death. Under John R. Thompson 
 and with the support of men like Simms, the two 
 Cookes (Philip Pendleton, the author of "Florence 
 Vane," and John Esten, the novelist) Paul Hayne, 
 and others, the "Messenger" was destined to oc 
 cupy for a few short years a position, not indeed 
 equal to that which it occupied under Poe's editor 
 ship, but still a respectable position. Thompson 
 had a faculty of singling out young writers of prom 
 ise, and Donald G. Mitchell and Thomas Bailey 
 Aldrich are two living authors, some of whose
 
 104 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 youthful effusions first saw the light in the "Mes 
 senger." But except for these two short periods 
 it cannot be said that the Richmond monthly did a 
 great deal for Southern literature. It is true that 
 in some respects it stands a fair comparison with 
 Northern publications like the "Knickerbocker" 
 and "Graham's," all being on the whole respect 
 ably dull; but there is more of the appearance 
 of a struggle for even a dull existence visible in 
 the Southern magazine. The poetry is as a rule 
 deadly. The prose fiction is scarcely better, except 
 for some passable tales by that engaging personage 
 the elder Cooke, and there is constant evidence of 
 padding in the frequent appearance of lectures 
 delivered by professors to their classes and of ora 
 tions spoken at the commencement exercises of 
 young ladies' seminaries. It could not have been 
 otherwise. The Southern people were not great 
 readers, and when they did read they preferred 
 Northern publications. The editors of these could 
 pay for contributions, and even patriotic South 
 erners like Simms sent their best work to them, 
 for authors cannot live on patriotism alone. 
 Northern prices for work were by no means high, 
 but Thompson recognized the fact that he could 
 not give as much, and he therefore considerately 
 forebore to press Simms for contributions, although 
 giatefully accepting what could not well be pub 
 lished elsewhere. Perhaps a careful study of the 
 thirty odd volumes of this often praised journal 
 till give one as fair an idea of the thin quality of
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 105 
 
 ante-bellum Southern literature as can be got from 
 any one source. During the former half of its ex 
 istence it does not compare as unfavorably with 
 Northern magazines as during the latter half, which 
 is precisely what we should expect when we remem 
 ber that freedom elevates, while slavery either keeps 
 at one level, or lowers. It was fitting that it should 
 perish during the throes of the war that finally 
 destroyed slavery; and it remains an admirable 
 source of information for the laborious student of 
 Southern life and manners. 
 
 But Simms in 1835 could not foresee all this, 
 and he cordially lent his support to the "Messen* 
 ger." He not only sent poems, some new and 
 some old, but he paid his five-dollar subscription 
 and had his name printed in the roll of honor on 
 the cover of the magazine. After Poe resigned his 
 editorship, another notice appeared on the cover 
 announcing that Mr. William Gilmore Simms was 
 not the editor. Northern readers knowing of only 
 two Southern writers, naturally supposed that when 
 Poe resigned, Simms had to step in. 
 
 But enough has been said of these attempts to 
 create a sectional literature and of their failure; 
 let us turn to the works in which Simms did lay a 
 foundation for Southern literature by following 
 out the universal, not sectional, principle of liter 
 ary art which requires that a man should write 
 spontaneously and simply about those things he is 
 fullest of and best understands. In the case of 
 most men this means that they must write of what
 
 106 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 lies near their very doors, and so a literature may 
 be produced which is in this sense, sectional. But 
 no nation or section will ever get a literature by 
 shrieking for the "national" and the "sectional" 
 and not praying for the true and the beautiful. 
 
 That Simms did not pray enough for the true 
 and the beautiful while writing "The Partisan " is 
 evident from the bald passages in which he forgets 
 that he is a romancer and fancies himself an histo 
 rian of the Revolution in Carolina, notably from 
 the passage preliminary to his description of the 
 battle of Camden, in which he gives in extenso 
 Gates's special orders to the army. But on the 
 whole it is easy to see that he wrote "The Partisan " 
 because his mind was full of Marion and his ragged 
 troopers, of brave deeds done by lowly men, of 
 midnight sallies from camps hidden in the depths 
 of a swamp, of Tarleton and his ruthless dragoons, 
 in short, of war in all its picturesqueness and all 
 its horror. He had studied the chronicles of that 
 stirring time, had read Marion's own letters, had 
 conversed with old men who had served under " the 
 Swamp Fox," and had walked or ridden over all 
 the spots that their bravery had consecrated. It 
 was because he tried to charm his readers with a 
 true picture of men and times that had charmed 
 himself that he succeeded in spite of his many 
 shortcomings in making "The Partisan "a delight 
 ful romance. 
 
 The scene of "The Partisan" is laid in and 
 around the once prosperous, but in 1835 utterly
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 107 
 
 decayed town of Dorchester. Simms, as he tells 
 us in the preface to his revised edition, had spent 
 part of a summer (perhaps that of 1834) in its 
 neighborhood, and had taken occasion to revisit its 
 ruins. As a boy he had frequently rambled over 
 the spot, and had listened to its traditions from the 
 lips of some old inhabitant whose name has not 
 been recorded. Now as he wandered about, look 
 ing at dismantled fort and neglected church and 
 vacant sites of once happy dwellings, these tradi 
 tions came back to him. In his imagination he 
 peopled the streets once more. The British flag 
 was again flying over the fort, the blare of the 
 bugle was heard, and Marion's men emerged from 
 a neighboring swamp and came thundering through 
 the village up to the gates of the stronghold. Here 
 was material enough for a story ; but as he re 
 volved the matter in his mind, he became convinced 
 that more than one romance would be required if 
 he proposed to give the world a fairly complete pic 
 ture of Carolina during the times of partisan war 
 fare. Whether he knew that another Southern 
 author was preparing to publish a romance on a 
 similar theme cannot be absolutely determined, but, 
 at any rate, he must have felt that it would be his 
 own fault if he did not prove himself to be a fair 
 rival for Kennedy. When he read "Horse-Shoe 
 Robinson," he probably concluded that even if it 
 contained fewer faults of style than "The Parti 
 san," it was much too leisurely a book for the ex 
 citing period in which its scene was laid, and that,
 
 108 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 in spite of all the critics could urge against the in 
 equalities of "The Partisan," that romance gave 
 a better insight into the character of the Revolution 
 in the- South than the more elaborate and ortho 
 dox production of the elder and not to the manor 
 born romancer. 
 
 He was convinced, then, that "The Partisan " and 
 "Horse- Shoe Robinson" did not exhaust the sub 
 ject, and more than this he was so pleased with the 
 characters he had called to life to people the streets 
 of old Dorchester that he could not bear to kill 
 them off or get them happily married within the 
 compass of one romance. He accordingly formed 
 the plan of writing a trilogy, each member of 
 which should, however, form a fairly complete 
 story. He did not succeed in this, for "Melli- 
 champe," as he himself afterwards confessed, has 
 only an episodical connection with "The Parti 
 san," and with the real sequel of that romance, 
 "Katharine Walton." Perhaps this was the rea 
 son that made him wait thirteen years before writ 
 ing the last mentioned book. But whether he 
 succeeded in his elaborate plan or not, he did not 
 cease to write revolutionary romances, or to con 
 tinue the adventures of his favorite characters 
 from book to book, and the reader is perhaps just 
 as well satisfied with the result. For although his 
 plots are always interesting and full of action, 
 Simms displayed no great art in the construction of 
 his romances, and his deficiencies in this regard 
 would have been more striking if he had really
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 109 
 
 attempted to construct a series of romances that 
 should form an organic whole. 
 
 Space is wanting to describe "The Partisan" in 
 detail. None of the characters can be called fas 
 cinating unless it be Lieutenant Porgy, whom most 
 critics, including Poe, have regarded as a vulgar 
 copy of Falstaff. To this verdict I do not sub 
 scribe. Simms said that Porgy was a transcript 
 from real life, and I have it on good authority that 
 he intended Porgy to be a reproduction of himself 
 in certain moods. Porgy is in many respects a 
 typical Southerner, brave, high talking, careless in 
 money matters and as generous as careless, fond of 
 good living, and last, but not least, too frequently 
 inclined to take his own commonplaces as the utter 
 ances of inspired wisdom. It cannot be denied that 
 Simms at times overdraws this favorite character, 
 who is introduced in many succeeding volumes. 
 But he is better drawn than most of the high-born 
 gentlemen that figure in Simms's romances. Simms 
 always succeeded best in his characters drawn from 
 the humbler walks of life, because he had studied 
 their ways too thoroughly in his border journeys 
 not to be able to make them live in his pages. 
 With his better-born characters he failed, partly 
 because such characters do not easily permit them 
 selves to be studied, partly because in drawing them 
 he was naturally influenced by his recollection of 
 similar characters in the numerous romances he had 
 read. 
 
 The charm of "The Partisan " lies in its action
 
 110 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 and in its descriptions. Few of its readers are 
 likely to forget the terrible storm that overtook 
 Major Singleton, the hero, in the forest; fewer 
 still will forget the rescue of Colonel Walton by 
 Marion's gallant troopers. Being from beginning 
 to end a story of adventure, it is naturally a boy's 
 book, but there is sufficient charm and power dis 
 played to interest an older reader. It is true that 
 for the sake of these merits many faults must be 
 pardoned, of which careless grammar and unne 
 cessary moralizing are unfortunately not the least. 
 As in the case of the border romances, there are 
 murders which either should not have been com 
 mitted, or else should have been described in a less 
 horrible way. There is an absurd lugging in of 
 historical details and an unfortunate proneness to 
 paint every Englishman and Tory in the darkest 
 colors ; there is an unnecessary amount of pompous 
 diction and of stilted conversation, but when 
 all is said, "The Partisan" remains a striking ro 
 mance, not indeed worthy to be placed on a level 
 with "The Spy," but certainly superior to most of 
 the early efforts of American romancers. 
 
 But how could a story written as "The Parti 
 san " and too many of Simms's other works were 
 written, escape being full of faults? When he 
 went to New York to arrange with his publishers, 
 he had completed only part of his manuscript. 
 The printers were set to work immediately, and 
 soon caught up with him. But the young man 
 wanted a holiday, and went to inform the Harpers
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. Ill 
 
 that he would be out of town for a week. ' J But," 
 said Mr. James Harper, "we are out of copy, and 
 unless you can furnish more, we shall have to sus 
 pend work on your novel until you return. " " That 
 will never do," replied the author, "give me pen, 
 ink, and paper, and I '11 go upstairs and find a 
 place to write." In less than half an hour he came 
 down again with more manuscript than would be 
 required during his absence. This sounds marvel 
 ous, or else New York printers in 1835 were not 
 rapid workers, but such was the story which Mr. 
 James Harper told in after years to a great ad 
 mirer of Simms. He added, and we must perforce 
 agree with him, that Simms had the most remark 
 able talent for writing he had ever known. But 
 could any talent neutralize the effects of such 
 methods of composition? 
 
 A very few words will suffice for "Mellichampe," 
 the romance that followed "The Partisan." In 
 some respects it is a more even production than its 
 predecessor, but it does not leave as distinct an im 
 pression upon the reader. It is redeemed only by 
 the character of the scout who follows Mellichampe, 
 the priggish young hero, like a faithful hound, and 
 finally dies for him. Witherspoon, or "Thumb 
 screw" as his companions call him, is a character 
 worthy of Cooper. He is not, perhaps, as re 
 markable a scout as some that Simms afterwards 
 drew, the peculiar features of the "low country " 
 of South Carolina make Simms's scouts a distinct 
 variety, but he is what is better, a noble man.
 
 112 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 The chapter that describes his death shows that 
 Simms for once in his life was able to be genuinely 
 pathetic. 
 
 After his honeymoon was over, our now popular 
 author had abundant leisure to lay his plans for 
 new literary work. Although his latest romances 
 had been quite successful in the North, his Caro 
 lina friends could not bring themselves to believe 
 that an author of his powers should waste his time 
 on such trivial subjects as the legends and tradi 
 tions of a country not two hundred years old. 
 They urged him to try a more ancient and foreign 
 and, therefore, more dignified theme. Their ad 
 vice was seconded by his own restlessness, and so 
 "Katharine Walton " was dismissed for the nonce, 
 and "Pelayo; a Story of the Goth" was rapidly 
 ground out. Simms had always been fascinated by 
 the romantic history of Spain, and the casual discov 
 ery of the manuscript of his youthful play on the 
 fortunes of Roderick was sufficient incitement to 
 carry him through the two volumes of "Pelayo" 
 and well on to the completion of its sequel, " Count 
 Julian." Perhaps another reason for his choice of 
 a foreign theme was a desire to succeed where his 
 great forerunner, Cooper, had confessedly failed. 
 
 But, as if to show him that he had made a mis 
 take, bad fortune attended both his new ventures. 
 Owing to the general depression of business, the 
 Harpers did not publish "Pelayo "until the autumn 
 of 1838 ; and the first five books of " Count Julian " 
 which were sent on, probably to the same publish-
 
 A PEOLIFIC ROMANCER. 113 
 
 ers, went astray through the carelessness of the 
 person that had charge of them, and did not turn 
 up again for two years. By this last incident we 
 are reminded of one of the chief difficulties South 
 ern authors had to encounter. Unless they could 
 carry their manuscripts in person to their publish 
 ers, they ran constant risk of having them lost, and 
 proof-reading at home was almost an impossibility. 
 Even as late as 1850, articles addressed to Simms 
 as editor of the " Southern Quarterly Review " were 
 continually being lost ; and when our South Caroli 
 nian author wished to compliment a brother man of 
 letters in Virginia (Beverley Tucker) with a set of 
 his works, he was compelled to send the books to 
 Richmond via Baltimore, - a proceeding which 
 resulted in their detention in the latter city for 
 several weeks. Simms, as we have seen, generally 
 managed to get to New York once a year to super 
 intend the publication of his own books, one is 
 forced to wish that he had not gone so often, but 
 most Southern aspirants for literary fame were 
 poor, and were easily tempted to give up after they 
 learned of the difficulties that lay before them. 
 Sometimes they tried local publishers, and were 
 made to say fearful and wonderful things by the 
 printers ; but as a rule they contented themselves 
 with writing to Simms, and asking him, as the 
 representative Southern man of letters, with, of 
 course, plenty of time to spare, to get them pub 
 lishers for their lucubrations. After a kindly an 
 swer from Simms, telling them that they must help
 
 114 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 themselves, they went to their graves as so many 
 "mute, inglorious Miltons"had gone before. It 
 must be added that Simms's kindly, genial nature 
 never shone forth more clearly than in his treat 
 ment of these well-meaning but pestering corre 
 spondents. 
 
 But whatever hopes our author may have had 
 of his Spanish romances were destined to be disap 
 pointed. "Pelayo " did not make a hit, and when 
 in 1845 "Count Julian" was finished and pub 
 lished, Simms confessed, in his dedication to Ken 
 nedy, that he had made a mistake in abandoning 
 the rich field his State and section had afforded him. 
 With this mature judgment of the author himself 
 we may well rest content. Both romances are read 
 able, when one is in a charitable mood, and each 
 has an occasional passage or scene of some power. 
 But there was no excuse for their publication, ex 
 cept the perennial one, ilfaut vivre. 
 
 This same plea must probably be urged for the 
 frequent appearance, in the magazines and annuals 
 of this period, of slight poems and sketches "by the 
 author of 'Atalantis,' 'Guy Rivers,' etc." A by 
 no means exhaustive search has shown that, in 
 1837, he appeared as a contributor twenty-two 
 times in three magazines. The contributions vary 
 in length from a single sonnet to six or eight double - 
 column pages of dull blank verse ; and from a short 
 sketch of some wandering minstrels to an elaborate 
 review of Miss Martineau's "Society in America." 
 White, the proprietor of the "Southern Literary
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 115 
 
 Messenger," thought this critique good enough to 
 deserve publication as a separate pamphlet, and we 
 shall find ourselves obliged to resort to it in a 
 future chapter as the first authoritative expression 
 of Simms's views on the subject of slavery. 
 
 If our prolific author could have been content to 
 let these effusions die with the magazines that con 
 tained them, it would have been better for his fame ; 
 but he could not do this, and, in 1838, he added to 
 his previous unsuccessful collections of tales a third, 
 entitled "Carl Werner," after the principal story. 
 What object he had in view, except to show that he 
 had been reading translations from the German of 
 late, is hard to conceive. Yet there is still to be 
 found among his papers a volume, evidently de 
 signed for publication, made up of clippings from 
 these long-forgotten collections. He died hard in 
 everything, this indefatigable writer of the old 
 South ; and if he could only have imparted some of 
 his indef atigability to his compatriots, he would not 
 have collected his tales in vain. But this was not 
 to be, and we are left to regret that he should never 
 have been able to discriminate between his worth 
 less and his worthy work. 
 
 But Spanish romances and weird tales after the 
 German were not enough to content the author of 
 "Guy Rivers." The success of that romance ne 
 cessitated the production of others like it, and as 
 Alabama lay next to Georgia, " Richard Hurdis : a 
 Tale of Alabama," was a proper story with which 
 to continue the series of border romances. It was
 
 116 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 published anonymously; for Simms, being some 
 thing of an experimenter, wished to ascertain 
 whether his books sold on their own merits, or 
 because the popular author of "Guy Rivers "had 
 written them. He soon discovered that it was the 
 sensational character of his stories that made them 
 sell; for "Richard Hurdis " was at once successful, 
 and the public was assured that a new author had 
 been discovered fully equal to the Carolina novelist. 
 But the true parentage of the blood-curdling ro 
 mance was soon an open secret; certainly after 
 it was furnished with a sequel, " Border Beagles : 
 a Tale of Mississippi," which appeared in 1840. 
 This last production was followed by "Beauchampe, 
 or the Kentucky Tragedy," in 1842. 
 
 These three stories need little criticism after 
 what has been said of "Guy Rivers." They are 
 less stilted in diction than that romance and more 
 power is shown in their construction; but then 
 years of practice will naturally affect for the better 
 even a prolific writer of sensational stories. The 
 Alabama and Mississippi tales were based upon 
 the history of the famous Murrell gang of "land- 
 pirates," who in the early thirties made life no 
 very enviable thing in the Southwest. Simms had 
 had many conversations with Virgil A. Stewart, the 
 captor of Murrell; besides, he had Stewart's own 
 narrative of his adventures to rely on. He stuck 
 closely to his authorities and gave a vivid picture 
 of backwoods lawlessness and an amusing, if sad, 
 description of backwoods justice. The fictitious
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 117 
 
 characters and events introduced are not specially 
 interesting ; but there would seem to be no reason 
 why the modern reader of sensational stories 
 should not be able to while away an hour with 
 these. Simms certainly managed to transfer no 
 little of his own vim and energy to his exciting 
 pages. 1 
 
 "Beauchampe," the third of this series, demands 
 a few words to itself. It is an almost literal ac 
 count of the killing of Colonel Sharpe by Colonel 
 Beauchamp, which took place in Kentucky in 
 1828. Sharpe had been the seducer of Beau- 
 champ's wife before the latter married her. Beau- 
 champ took summary vengeance as soon as he 
 learned the fact, and mirabile dlctu, a Kentucky 
 jury was found that could bring in a verdict of 
 guilty of murder in the first degree. The details 
 of the wretched affair can be found in any news 
 paper of the time, and they certainly are not 
 needed here; but one cannot help smiling at the 
 laxness shown by jailers who could admit the crim 
 inal's wife to his cell on the night before his ex 
 ecution, and then be surprised that the precious 
 pair should attempt to commit suicide. 
 
 But Simms gives these details with relentless 
 accuracy. Even Poe, whose morbid taste was 
 tickled by the border stories, had to remonstrate 
 with the author for his unwillingness to trust his 
 
 1 The reader who desires a soberer account of the Murrell gang 
 can consult an article oil " The Uses and Abuses of Lynch Law " 
 in the Whig Review for December, 1850.
 
 118 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 imagination in a single particular. Simms really 
 seems to have thought that he was doing the cause of 
 public morality a service by exposing the just and 
 terrible fate that fell upon these offenders ; but it 
 was a strange error for a man of his sense to make. 
 Fourteen years later he actually took up the subject 
 again, and in " Charlemont : the Pride of the Vil 
 lage," gave a detailed and often salacious account 
 of the steps by which Sharpe succeeded in seducing 
 the ambitious village beauty, Margaret Cooper. 
 Here, too, he thought that he was doing public 
 morality a service : but he was no George Eliot, and 
 Margaret Cooper is, therefore, no Hetty Sorrel. 
 "Beauchampe" and "Charlemont" were largely 
 sold in Kentucky, and it is to be hoped that at 
 least they put some money in the pocket of their 
 honest and deserving, if sadly mistaken writer. 
 
 This is a gloomy subject, but it ought not to be 
 dismissed until its humorous side is shown, for it 
 has one. In that exemplary periodical, "Godey's 
 Lady's Book," for May, 1842, after a very fa 
 vorable notice of "Beauchampe," the editor, Mrs. 
 Sarah J. Hale, addressed her readers as follows: 
 " It is a curious fact that simultaneously with 
 the publication of the novel, we actually received 
 a communication, signed by a number of our 
 respected friends and subscribers in Missouri, re 
 questing us to obtain the necessary materials relat 
 ing to this famous Kentucky tragedy, and work 
 them up into a tale for the Lady's Book. . . . The 
 daughters of the West will now see the seducer and
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 119 
 
 slanderer of female innocence consigned to that 
 immortality of infamy which he has so richly de 
 served." Encouragement from so unexpected a 
 quarter must have greatly delighted Simms and 
 those of his fellow-craftsmen who worked up this 
 choice scandal, for Simms was by no means alone 
 in the predilection he showed for the tragedy. 
 Isaac Starr Classon wrote a poem on it, which 
 has fortunately been lost, and Charles Fenno 
 Hoffman gave a diluted version of it in his over 
 rated romance, "Greyslaer." 
 
 Meanwhile Simms had published another volume 
 of miscellaneous verse, the title of which, " South 
 ern Passages and Pictures," is more quotable than 
 any of the pieces it contained. The prefatory note, 
 written by the author while on a visit to New York 
 in the fall of 1838, makes one regret that little can 
 be said in favor of these collected results of six 
 years' labor in verse making. While correcting the 
 proof sheets Simms had heard of the death of his 
 first child by his second wife, a daughter, Virginia 
 Singleton, who lived only eleven months. 
 
 But before long there was a prospect that 
 Woodlands would again be cheered by the sight 
 of a baby's face, so the disconsolate father settled 
 down to the production of another romance in order 
 to lay by something for the support of the new 
 comer. This time he thought he would combine 
 Spain and America instead of separating them; 
 and he was doubtless urged thereto by the success 
 of Bird's two romances and of the romantic histo-
 
 120 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 ries of Irving. He accordingly rushed through 
 what Poe with some truth pronounced to be the 
 worst of his romances, "The Damsel of Darien " 
 (1839), a story founded upon the adventures of 
 Balboa. There was really little excuse for this pro 
 duction, for nothing of any consequence was added 
 to Irving' s pleasant narrative, and certainly the 
 dilution of Irving' s matter did not make up for the 
 loss of Irving's charm of style. 
 
 The year 1840 is not an especially marked year 
 in Simms's calendar. Besides "Border Beagles," 
 he continued publishing, in the " Southern Literary 
 Messenger," a series of scattered poems under the 
 title "Early Lays," which must not be confounded 
 with the juvenile volume already criticised, and he 
 prepared for the use of school children a short and 
 fairly interesting history of South Carolina. His 
 daughter Augusta was now thirteen, and her father 
 thought it necessary that she should know more 
 about the history of her native State than most 
 girls, or indeed boys, knew then, or, it may be 
 added, know now. Especially was this necessary, 
 if she was to be educated at a Northern school, 
 and he had doubtless already formed a plan to 
 send her to Great Barrington, where she could 
 be with one of Bryant's daughters. 
 
 In 1841, our untiring writer published two ro 
 mances of the usual length in addition to his accus 
 tomed quota of short stories and poems. The first 
 of the romances was " The Kinsmen, or the Black 
 Riders of the Congaree," issued in the spring of
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 121 
 
 that year by Lea and Blanchard of Philadelphia, 
 which city was to be in the future as much his 
 publishing Mecca as New York. This story was 
 afterwards rechristened, and now appears as "The 
 Scout." Both names are appropriate; for if the 
 admirable woodsman, John Bannister, is the re 
 deeming feature of the book, certainly the unnat 
 ural and horrible relations existing between the 
 heroes, the half-brothers Conway, are enough both 
 to give it a title and to furnish a ground for its con 
 demnation. It is true that Simms had now returned 
 to his proper field and given his readers a tale of 
 South Carolina in the Revolution; but the bad 
 company he had kept while writing "Richard Hur- 
 dis " and "Border Beagles " had not been without 
 its effects. Woodlands was quiet and domestic 
 enough, but whenever he shut himself up in his 
 study he fell to talking with thieves and outlaws 
 and brothers eager to kill one another, so it is no 
 wonder that in this new romance he dwelt almost 
 exclusively on the darker side of Carolina's revolu 
 tionary history. There were enough Tories riding 
 over the State in those days to furnish him with any 
 number of villains : and so, with a partisan half- 
 brother, who is as brave and noble as a lion ; and a 
 Tory half-brother, who is equally brave, but decid 
 edly ignoble ; and a high-bred damsel, who is loved 
 by both; together with a contemptible British 
 dandy, and scouts of all shades of loyalty and 
 skill, a romance was evolved which occupies a mean 
 position between " Richard Hurdis " and "Border
 
 122 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 Beagles," and is warranted not to put a reader 
 asleep. 
 
 This cannot be said of the second of the romances 
 of this year, "Confession ; or, the Blind Heart." 
 Here Simms, by his own acknowledgment, went 
 back to Godwin again, and, as in the case of 
 "Martin Faber," worked up an old theme that 
 had long been cast aside. We have seen how his 
 rummaging among his papers led to the useless 
 inditing of "Pelayo" and " Count Julian ;" now 
 another long-lost manuscript leads to a greater 
 failure. The motif of "Confession" seems to 
 have been a desire on Simms's part to rival 
 Shakespeare in his greatest play. He had too 
 much sense to attempt to create a second Falstaff 
 in Porgy ; but his dabbling in morbid psychology 
 rendered him blind to the real nature of Shake 
 speare's triumph in "Othello." Simms declared 
 that Othello was not truly jealous, because he had 
 been practiced upon by lago, and he therefore 
 resolved to write a romance in which the hero 
 should be moved by the inward workings of jeal 
 ousy alone. But here he unconsciously placed 
 himself between Scylla and Charybdis. On the 
 one hand, he ran the risk of making his hero a 
 repulsive and unlovable character, if not a villain ; 
 on the other, of making him a fool or a madman. 
 But to make one's hero a villain or a fool or a mad 
 man is but to write a repulsive novel. Shakespeare 
 was too great an artist to make such a mistake. 
 The fact that Othello has been practiced upon by
 
 A PROLIFIC ROMANCER. 123 
 
 lago excites our sympathy for him and sustains it 
 even to the horrible catastrophe. Othello is still 
 human, still a noble man, though wrecked ; Edward 
 Clifford, the hero of "Confession," excites our 
 loathing and contempt. Indeed, there is not a single 
 strong or wholesome character in the book, which 
 may fairly be described as made up of exaggerations 
 and absurdities. It is worse than "Martin Faber," 
 to which it bears many striking resemblances ; and 
 so the reader may be spared the steps by which Clif 
 ford is worked up to killing his by no means Desde- 
 mona-like wife. That refined and sensible man, 
 Paul Hayne, used to praise this story, for what rea 
 son it is hard to discover; the present writer can 
 see in it only a striking proof of the futility of at- 
 " tempting to write ,a novel in order to illustrate a 
 pet theory, whether of psychology, or social science, 
 or theology. It was because Simms's head had 
 gone astray and not his heart, that he was tempted 
 to write, within a year of each other, two such re 
 pulsive and uncalled-for stories as "Confession" 
 and "Beauchampe." 
 
 But psychological speculations were not the only 
 ones occupying Simms's mind at this time. The 
 political future of the South was just as often the 
 subject of his meditations, and the only two pages 
 worth remembering in the romance criticised above 
 are those in which one of the characters gives his 
 reasons for emigrating to Texas. To Simms's vivid 
 imagination the conquest of Canada was certain to 
 come in a very few years, and the North would
 
 124 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 then be increased by "six ponderous States," which 
 would be "New England all over," in policy and 
 character. To balance this the South would have 
 Florida, of which two feeble States could be made. 
 But war with England for Canada would necessi 
 tate our taking possession of Cuba, "after a civil 
 apology to Spain;" and the British West Indies, 
 "which should of right be ours," would of course 
 be ours in fact. But this would not be enough. 
 Texas would soon be settled sufficiently with South 
 ern men to render the conquest of Mexico natural 
 and easy, and "the brave old English tongue" 
 would "arouse the best echoes in the city of Mon- 
 tezuma!" Then with Texas, Mexico, Cuba, and 
 the West Indies, the South could feel fairly safe 
 with regard to Canada; whether the national con 
 science would be at rest was a point on which the 
 glowing prophet did not see fit to dwell. Ingenu 
 ous dreamer ! As one reads his swelling periods 
 in the light of cold facts, and endeavors to realize 
 the state of mind that could produce such visions, 
 that wonderful line of Herrick's rises unbidden to 
 one's mind: 
 
 " In this world, the Isle of Dreams," 
 
 and, the sad years of war and suffering in store for 
 these dreamers being recalled, the stanza naturally 
 completes itself : 
 
 "While we sit by Sorrow's streams, 
 Tears and terrors are our themes."
 
 CHAPTER V. * 
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 
 
 ONLY one romance of any length was published by 
 Simms between "Beauchampe " (1842) and "Kath 
 arine Walton " (1850). This was " Count Julian, " 
 which has been mentioned already. But if during 
 this period he made his bow as a romancer less fre 
 quently to the American public, he certainly did 
 not slight the English public. For "Guy Rivers " 
 had been reissued in a cheap form by a London 
 house, in 1841, and "The Kinsmen," "Beau 
 champe," and others had speedily followed, some 
 very shortly after their publication in America. 
 The English publishers seem to have been satisfied 
 with the success of their reprints, and they entered 
 into an arrangement with Simms by which they 
 were allowed to issue "Count Julian" simultane 
 ously with its appearance in America. But they 
 thought it necessary to prefix a note combating the 
 opinion that had been advanced by a reviewer in 
 the "Spectator," that the author of "The Yemas- 
 see " had not the strength, comprehension, and flex 
 ibility necessary for a romance. Surely this re 
 viewer will be confounded by the present romance, 
 added the ingenuous publishers. Whether he was
 
 126 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 or not is doubtful, but Simms was read, and one 
 publisher found it to his interest to announce that 
 the American romancer was present in London su 
 perintending the issue of his own works, and editing 
 a "Library of Trans-Atlantic Romance." 
 
 But although he is now gaining readers in Eng 
 land, and although his best works are soon to be 
 translated into German, we suddenly find him 
 practically giving up romance writing for eight 
 years. He does write a few short stories and 
 novelettes, and he increases his poetical output; but 
 these seem to be mere asides, mere holiday tasks 
 compared with the main business of his life, which 
 appears to consist in endeavoring to thrust as 
 many irons as possible into the fire. In these 
 eight years he edits two magazines, begins to edit 
 a third, is his own chief contributor, and favors his 
 New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond confreres 
 with a perennial supply of manuscript. He is 
 equally dexterous in dashing off satires and in de 
 livering Fourth of July and Commencement ora 
 tions. He turns biographer, and with apparently 
 little effort writes the lives of three American he 
 roes, and then adventurously tries his hand on the 
 romantic career of Bayard. He continues his in 
 vestigations into the history of his native State, and 
 publishes a geography of the same. He assumes 
 the role of critic, fills his magazines with reviews 
 long and short, and collects the best in two vol 
 umes. He edits apocryphal plays, and serves two 
 years in the legislature. And in the midst of it all
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 127 
 
 he finds time for an annual visit to the North, for 
 jauntings through the South and Southwest, for 
 balls and parties in Charleston, and for the duties 
 of a planter at Woodlands. 
 
 Now, although the quantity of this work is not 
 surprising to those who have followed Simms in his 
 early career as a romancer, it is somewhat remark 
 able that he should have ceased so completely to 
 hobnob with outlaws, or to accompany partisans on 
 their midnight sallies, or to stand silent with Span 
 ish discoverers upon their peaks in Darien (Keats 
 has made Cortez stand on one, so there is no reason 
 why they should not all be made to do the same). 
 Perhaps, however, a little reflection will tend to 
 lessen this surprise. 
 
 In the first place, it is doubtful whether the pub 
 lic were running after his later romances with the 
 eagerness they had shown when "Guy Rivers" and 
 " The Yemassee " appeared. American competitors 
 were becoming more numerous, and there were al 
 ready signs that the romantic school was beginning 
 to lose its hold upon the world. Simms may, there 
 fore, have thought, or else it may have been a mere 
 feeling with him, that it was time for him to be 
 turning to something new. Besides, he had always 
 valued his poetry more than his romances, although 
 he held the romancer's function in high esteem, and 
 he might have thought that if he could make more 
 money by other means, it would give him greater 
 opportunities for developing his poetic talents. 
 Then, too, he had always had a hankering for the
 
 128 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 editor's desk and for a greater share in the conduct 
 of affairs than can usually fall to the lot of a ro 
 mancer, weaving his far-off plots in the seclusion of 
 a retired country house. His mind, moreover, was 
 naturally a restless one ; he liked to move rapidly 
 from one subject to another, he was fond of airing 
 his theories whether of politics, or art, or metaphy 
 sics. Thus the role of critic came easily to him; 
 and in a State which venerated the states-rights doc 
 trine equally with Christianity, it was no undesir 
 able thing to be elected a member of the legislature. 
 This state pride might also be expected to increase 
 his penchant for studies connected with his State's 
 geography and history ; and from these studies he 
 might easily be led into the flowery paths, as they 
 were then, when minute or unpleasant details were 
 not required, of biography, especially when the sub 
 jects of his eulogy were more or less connected with 
 his State. In short, reasons are not wanting to ex 
 plain what at first sight seems a curious step ; but 
 the chief reason, perhaps, has not been stated. 
 
 We have seen what exclusive people the South 
 Carolinians par excellence were, and we have seen 
 how natural it was that a man born outside the 
 pale of the aristocracy should have desired to have 
 his talents recognized by that aristocracy. Not 
 that Simms had any fawning characteristics about 
 him. No man had less false shame than he, or had 
 less desire to push himself where he was not wanted ; 
 no man saw so clearly the narrowness and unfruit- 
 fulness of the life led by wealthy and high-born
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 129 
 
 Southerners, and no man had less desire to lead it, 
 or less disposition to undervalue his own self- 
 achieved reputation. Nevertheless he did desire 
 that the people among whom he had cast his lot 
 should recognize the value of his work, and accord 
 to him the honor and position that are due to great 
 talents however displayed. In this he was right; 
 and yet the fact was forced upon his notice every 
 day that the upper classes of his native State did not 
 recognize him as a credit to the State. Doubtless 
 he chuckled, but it was a grim chuckle, when he 
 heard how Lord Morpeth had silenced the Charles- 
 tonians who, when they were asked by the traveler 
 as to the whereabouts of Simms, replied that they 
 did not know, and intimated that he was not con 
 sidered such a great man in Charleston. " Simms 
 not a great man !" replied the astonished visitor; 
 "then for God's sake, who is your great man?" 
 Still, although he could chuckle sometimes, and at 
 other times denounce this treatment in his declam 
 atory way, or insert into his writings a few well- 
 pointed sneers at the vapid pride of your born 
 aristocrat, he was hurt to the heart by the indiffer 
 ence with which his labors were received. But 
 could this state of things be altered? Certainly 
 not, if he continued to write romances, for the best 
 South Carolinians disdained to read such things. 
 Yet were not clouds looming up over the South, 
 was not every intellect that she could call her own 
 needed in the war that she must wage in defense of 
 her institutions? Would not the recognition denied
 
 130 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 to the mere romancer be gladly given to the man 
 who, as editor, defended the South against all ene 
 mies and proved that she had a host of capable 
 writers in all departments; who, as critic, pierced 
 the armor of her captious assailants and carried the 
 war into Africa by pointing out the weak places in 
 this proud modern civilization, so called? It would 
 certainly seem that to do less would savor of the 
 rankest ingratitude. "Then good -by to romances, 
 and welcome to any work that will foster my sec 
 tion's interest and win my countrymen's regard." 
 So, doubtless, thought Simms the romancer, and he 
 forthwith set about his new tasks; or, rather, he 
 never thought anything of the kind, and drifted into 
 his new work impelled by influences similar to 
 those outlined above, but by no means so plainly 
 defined. It is not often that a man in real life pon 
 ders over the propriety of taking some important 
 step in exactly the fashion his biographer points 
 out; but the latter, although he gives shape and 
 coherence to influences that are really shapeless 
 and incoherent, not infrequently gives us a true 
 insight into his hero's character and actions. 
 
 It is obvious from the brief sketch that has al 
 ready been given of Simms's varied labors during 
 the period of eight years which this chapter is in 
 tended to cover, that many achievements and events 
 which seemed very important to our author at the 
 time of their accomplishment or occurrence must 
 be passed over at the present day in comparative 
 silence. The literary value of work done under
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 131 
 
 such circumstances is naturally slight; and our 
 main object must be to get a fair idea of Simms's 
 remarkable versatility, and of his relations to con 
 temporary Southern life and thought. This can 
 best be done by grouping his labors under several 
 convenient heads. And first of his work as editor 
 and critic. 
 
 After the failure of the "Southern Literary 
 Journal," in 1839, its place was supplied by a small 
 magazine called the "Southron," which speedily 
 went under. Simms certainly contributed one 
 article to it, and probably more. In 1841, a Mr. 
 P. C. Pendleton, of Savannah, who had been pub 
 lishing a Southern rival to "Godey's Lady's Book," 
 changed its name to the "Magnolia, or Southern 
 Monthly," and in some way or other, hardly by 
 large payments, induced Simms to become first 
 its main contributor, then its associate editor, and 
 finally, after the publication office had been moved 
 to Charleston, in June, 1842, its editor in chief. 
 Simms labored heroically, and secured contributions 
 from the best Southern writers, such as Carruthers, 
 Longstreet, Meek, and Charleston's mild poetess 
 of the L. E. L. type, Miss Mary E. Lee. But a 
 year of that climate, so fatal to literary journals, 
 withered the promising bud, and the " Magnolia " 
 was decently buried in June, 1843. Simms had got 
 it talked about, however, by publishing in its col 
 umns a story entitled "The Loves of the Driver," 
 which described in rather too suggestive a man 
 ner the amours of a negro Adonis. While critics
 
 132 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 were doubtless right in assailing this story, Simms 
 had at least avoided a fault only too common with 
 some modern delineators of negro manners. He 
 had neither described the negro as an ideal being, 
 the possessor of virtues that are seldom seen even 
 in representatives of higher races, nor had he 
 painted him as an absolute brute, destitute of all 
 human traits. This ability to hold the balance 
 even, when he is describing characters of an hum 
 ble type, is to be noted in all of Simms 's work. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Whitaker, of the defunct 
 "Literary Journal," had begun to edit a successor 
 to the old "Southern Review "of Elliott and Le- 
 gare. This was the " Southern Quarterly Review," 
 the first number of which appeared in January, 
 1842, at New Orleans, but which was shortly after 
 published .at Charleston. Whitaker soon took as 
 associate editor Mr. J. D. B. De Bow, afterwards 
 founder of the review that bore his name, and mat 
 ters continued in this state until a number of 
 Charleston gentlemen, who were dissatisfied with 
 the editorship of a man not born a Southerner, 
 bought the review and intrusted its conduct to Mr. 
 J. Milton Clapp. This was some time about Feb 
 ruary, 1847. But Clapp was no great improve 
 ment upon Whitaker, and in March, 1849, Simms 
 was induced to take the editorial chair. He had 
 previously been a voluminous contributor, but he 
 had not equaled the gentleman who wrote an arti 
 cle one hundred and two pages long on the French 
 Revolution. Under his management the review
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 133 
 
 improved, as we shall see in the next chapter, but 
 he could never induce his contributors to shorten 
 their articles or to make them more interesting. 
 The padding to be discovered in his own papers may 
 be excused, from the fact that even long-winded 
 contributors were scarce. 
 
 Charleston was, however, to have the pleasure 
 of supporting, or rather of not supporting, two 
 other magazines. Mr. William C. Richards, an 
 Englishman by birth, for some years connected 
 with Southern periodical literature, and afterwards 
 a Baptist minister at Providence, R. L, had been 
 publishing at Penfield, Georgia, a small magazine 
 rejoicing in the meaningless title of the "Orion." 
 But the "Orion" outgrew Penfield, and at the 
 solicitation of Simms and others it was transferred 
 to Charleston. In that unwholesome atmosphere 
 it lived a year, possibly two ; nor did it die for 
 lack of aid from Simms. He wrote articles and 
 poems without number for it, and he edited it 
 during the very oppressive months of July and 
 August, 1844, when Richards was taking a holi 
 day. How he was paid, except by the belief that 
 he was doing his duty by his section and by his 
 friend, is hard to determine. Still he kept the 
 numerous books sent to him for review, and he cer 
 tainly utilized his carefully prepared articles on 
 "The Moral Character of Hamlet," as materials for 
 a future lecture. 
 
 But contributing to the "Orion," "Godey's," 
 "Graham's," the "Democratic Review," and
 
 134 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 the "Southern Quarterly," was not like editing a 
 magazine of his own; so in January, 1845, the 
 "Southern and Western Monthly Magazine and Re 
 view," often known as "Simms's Magazine," made 
 its appearance. Whether it was its ambitious 
 name, or the fact that Simms for the most part 
 filled its pages with his own productions, or the air 
 of Charleston that killed it, is uncertain. Possibly 
 all these causes were effective ; at least it is clear 
 that after surviving twelve months it was absorbed 
 in the "Southern Literary Messenger," that mag 
 azine becoming, in January, 1846, the "Southern 
 and Western Literary Messenger and Review," 
 which most ponderous title it soon dropped. 
 
 "Simms's Magazine " was not a bad one as mag 
 azines, especially Southern magazines, went then. 
 Its editor was conscientious enough, and he per 
 suaded a few of his Northern friends, like Evert 
 Duyckinck and Headley, to help him out with an 
 occasional contribution. He also relied on Meek, 
 Albert Pike, W. C. Richards, Mrs. Caroline Lee 
 Hentz (afterwards a prolific novelist), A. J. Re- 
 quier, and a young Carolinian poet and protege, 
 J. M. Legare. But his main dependence was him 
 self and his double self, "Adrian Beaufain," whose 
 name was appended to many lyrics. It is easy to 
 count up over twenty -five long articles and tales of 
 his own composition, some of which had never been 
 published before, but which were certainly made to 
 do good service afterwards. A glance at the biblio 
 graphical appendix will show that this editorial
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 135 
 
 work constituted only a small part of Simms's 
 labors for the year 1845. Certainly if ever a man 
 strove to make the outside world believe that his 
 section had a literature, Simms was that man. 
 There is no need to speak here of the quality of 
 his work; for as he himself subsequently collected 
 the best of it for publication in a more permanent 
 form, there will be occasion shortly to be suffi 
 ciently critical. 
 
 A somewhat different piece of editorial work, 
 and of later date, is found in "A Supplement to the 
 Plays of William Shakespeare," a volume which 
 Simms had long planned, and which he finally suc 
 ceeded in having published, in April, 1848. Seven 
 only of the apocryphal plays were given, and the 
 editor's own work was slight both in quantity and 
 in quality. The only play annotated with any full 
 ness was "The Two Noble Kinsmen," and the 
 notes and introduction to this were mainly derived 
 from Charles Knight. Indeed, a cursory examina 
 tion of the volume would lead to the conclusion that 
 it was but a piece of hack work, and therefore 
 scarcely worthy of mention. Such a conclusion 
 would be highly unjust to Simms. He really un 
 dertook the task as a labor of love, and his own 
 editorial and critical deficiencies were due to his 
 lack of education and to his Southern environment. 
 Ever since the days of his boyhood he had been de 
 voted to the old drama. He had discoursed wisely 
 on Shakespeare in the " Southern Literary Gazette," 
 and more lately in the "Orion," and he had never
 
 136 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 tired of jotting down his supposed textual emenda 
 tions. He had a fancy for digging out quotations 
 from little-read plays, and setting them at the heads 
 of his chapters, and he not infrequently put them 
 into the mouths of his characters, regardless of the 
 proprieties of time and place. His library was 
 doubtless better supplied with works relating to the 
 drama than that of any private gentleman in the 
 South; and he was constantly advising his friends 
 and readers to take up his favorite study. 
 
 But though Simms had become an enthusiastic 
 student of what is, perhaps, the greatest body of 
 literature the world has ever seen, he could not 
 make himself a scholarly student. His early 
 training and associations, nay, his life-long envi 
 ronment, were against this. The vicissitudes of his 
 youth had deprived his mind of that quality of re 
 pose which is essential for scholarly work. Simms 
 was restless and aggressive. The scorn the Caro 
 lina literati had bestowed upon him had created in 
 him a spirit of defiance and of self-reliance almost 
 amounting to conceit. Such a man could display 
 great energy, but no great patience ; could be good 
 at dashing off outlines, but not at filling in. It is 
 no wonder, then, that as a critic he is often discov 
 ered to be shallow where he thought himself pro 
 found, that he is never subtle or penetrating, and 
 that he is at his best when he forgets his theories 
 and his second-hand erudition, and talks simply 
 about things he has seen and heard and done. 
 
 We are now prepared to conclude our survey of
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITEEAEY ACTIVITY. 137 
 
 Simms's critical work by a brief examination of 
 the two volumes entitled "Views and Reviews 
 in American Literature, History, and Fiction " 
 (1846). Under this somewhat grandiloquent title 
 were collected the best of his contributions to his 
 own and other magazines. It is true that he con 
 tinued to do critical work to the day of his death, 
 but he never surpassed the essays here collected, and 
 except for an occasional reference there will be 
 little necessity for further comment in this connec 
 tion. Of the eleven essays thus republished, three 
 deserve favorable mention. These are "Daniel 
 Boone," an unpretending sketch of a character 
 Simms could fully appreciate; "The Writings of 
 James Fenimore Cooper," a sound critical essay 
 with no trace of unworthy rivalry on Simms's part; 
 and "Weems, the Biographer and Historian," a 
 gossipy article, which would almost bear republi- 
 cation to-day. In 1852, Bryant wrote of the paper 
 on Cooper as "a critical essay of great depth and 
 discrimination, to which I am not sure that any 
 thing hitherto written on the same subject is fully 
 equal." 
 
 The most elaborate essay is styled, " The Epochs 
 and Events of American History, as suited to the 
 Purposes of Art in Fiction." This was the final 
 form Simms gave to two lectures previously deliv 
 ered before the Georgia Historical Society, and here 
 he allowed his theories to run away with him. In 
 consequence the crudities of the production attract 
 more attention than the vigor of thought which
 
 138 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 is occasionally visible. For example, when he at 
 tempts to show how a future dramatist can use the 
 story of Arnold's treason (he tried it himself), and 
 tells us of Washington that, "while his sword 
 achieves the death of the foreign emissary (Andre), 
 his stern voice, rising preeminent over all the sounds 
 of battle, shall send the traitor (Arnold), hell in 
 his heart and curses on his lips, to the inglorious 
 scaffold, which the audience does not see," he is 
 simply amusing, without in the least intending to be 
 so. One can perceive, however, that constant writ 
 ing has simplified Simms's style, and one con 
 cludes, therefore, that he has not crystallized. 
 
 From the point of view of his contemporaries the 
 most important work done by Simms during these 
 crowded years is, perhaps, to be found in his four 
 biographies of Marion (1844), Captain John Smith 
 (1846), the Chevalier Bayard (1848), and General 
 Greene (1849). Even now the books have some 
 value as popular and uncritical accounts of the ro 
 mantic heroes with whom they are concerned, and 
 the wide circulation of the two first mentioned is a 
 proof that Simms must have done some good by fa 
 miliarizing his countrymen with the noble deeds of 
 noble men. Of these four works the one that en 
 joyed most popular favor would seem to be the least 
 interesting. "The Life of Marion " went through 
 three editions in three months, and is known to 
 have reached as many as ten ; yet, if it is not posi 
 tively dull, it fails to charm one as a life of such a 
 fascinating character ought to do. But perhaps
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 139 
 
 this judgment comes from a comparison of the Mar 
 ion of the revolutionary romances with the Marion 
 of the biography, which is hardly a fair procedure. 
 The life of the magniloquent founder of the Vir 
 ginia Colony was a more interesting and scarcely 
 less popular production; but the biography on 
 which Simms took most pains and which he fancied 
 most was very little read. It is not often that one 
 can agree with an author in his estimate of his own 
 work ; but it is not difficult to share with Simms 
 his liking for "The Life of the Chevalier Bayard." 
 True, there is no great research visible in its pages ; 
 but then a general reader does not usually care for 
 great research when a romantic character is in ques 
 tion. It suffices that this book reads smoothly, 
 that it treats of interesting men and times in an 
 easy and acceptable way, that it makes no pretense 
 of being a work of erudition. If Simms had al 
 ways used such simple English as is to be found 
 here, he would have to-day a much higher rank as 
 a writer. 
 
 "The Life of Nathanael Greene" deserves a 
 special paragraph only from the fact that it pur 
 ports to be edited by Simms. There is, however, 
 no reason to believe that he did not write it. He 
 speaks, it is true, of "revising for the publishers 
 the manuscript of the present work; " but Simms 's 
 ear -marks are visible through the whole of it, and 
 he had had such a biography in contemplation for 
 years. Be this as it may, the book is an orthodox 
 and decorous biography and, on the whole, well
 
 140 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 written. Of course no one would now think of 
 consulting it as an authority, but Professor Chan- 
 ning is right when he tells us that it "has at least 
 the merit of being interesting." 1 The reader will 
 probably conclude from all that has been said that if 
 Simms did not add permanently to his reputation 
 by these biographies, he nevertheless enabled the 
 public to get much useful information in a pleasant 
 way, and also added to an income which was by no 
 means too large for an ever-growing family. 
 
 This income could not have been much increased 
 by the lectures and orations and political harangues 
 which occupied what might be called spare hours, 
 if Simms could be conceived as having had any 
 such luxuries. They helped, however, to spread 
 his reputation, and doubtless made him think that 
 before long he would be recognized as a political 
 leader. Several of them were published, but none 
 needs any special notice. One delivered at the 
 University of Alabama, in December, 1843, seems 
 to have been followed by the degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, the honorable abbreviation for which was 
 afterwards tacked on to his name on all occasions 
 by his admirers, and gave those who did not like 
 him an opportunity for indulging in a little sar 
 casm. Simms himself modestly wished that the 
 degree had not been conferred upon him, for in his 
 soberer moments he did not fail to remember and 
 regret his lack of thorough scholarship. 
 
 Some of his orations were political in character, 
 1 In Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History," etc., vi. 512.
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITER AEY ACTIVITY. 141 
 
 and the one delivered at Aikin, South Carolina, on 
 the 4th of July, 1844, was certainly bold enough 
 in its utterances to convince all classes of South 
 Carolinians that Simms would lend his support to 
 any scheme of Southern aggrandizement that the 
 more violent leaders of the aristocracy might coun 
 sel. It was probably as a reward for this boldness 
 that he found himself elected a member of the 
 state legislature from Barnwell County for the ses 
 sion of 184446. Although his career in the lower 
 house of that body does not seem to have done 
 much to advance his political interests, he soon be 
 came noted as a forcible speaker and a stanch up 
 holder of the cause of his section. For drafting 
 resolutions against the protective system, the 
 schemes of abolitionists, and the opposition to the 
 annexation of Texas, the pen of so ready a writer 
 was naturally in demand. He never needed prepa 
 ration, but could always be relied on for a telling 
 speech against lukewarm members who thought 
 that their State was speeding too fast along its 
 eccentric path. His talents commanded respect, 
 and his hearty manners and his fund of good sto 
 ries won him many friends. Some of these were in 
 the habit of writing to him in after years, and wish 
 ing that he were still in the House to thunder out 
 his patriotic speeches as in the days of yore. But 
 they did more than remember him when he was ab 
 sent ; for, as a reward for his honorable services, 
 it was proposed to give him a strictly honorable 
 office, that of lieutenant-governor. According to
 
 142 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 the Columbia correspondent of the "Courier," it 
 was believed up to the day of the election that 
 Simms would receive the office ; but on December 
 8, 1846, the aforesaid correspondent wrote to his 
 paper as follows: "The Hon. David Johnson was 
 elected governor to-day, without opposition, and 
 the Hon. W. M. Cain, of Pineville, lieutenant- 
 governor, by a majority of one vote over William 
 Gilmore Simms, Esq." 
 
 What happened in the one day that intervened 
 between these announcements can only be left to 
 conjecture. Perhaps Simms had made enemies as 
 well as friends by his boldness ; perhaps there was 
 some secret log-rolling. It is certain, however, that 
 he never afterwards came so near to getting an 
 office, and his political aspirations, if not crushed, 
 must have received a great check. But his influ 
 ence upon the policy of his State and section was to 
 be none the less felt, and it is not certain that his 
 happiness or his usefulness or his income would 
 have been increased by his election. He did not, 
 however, give up public speaking because his voice 
 was no longer to be heard in legislative halls. 
 Paul Hayne tells us how, when in the midsummer 
 of 1847 he was an interested boy listener at a pub 
 lic meeting in Charleston, a cry arose for " Simms, 
 Gilmore Simms." He describes how the author 
 whose romances had time and again thrilled him 
 with delight "came forward with a slow, stately 
 step under the full blaze of the chandeliers, a man 
 in the prime of life, tall, vigorous, and symmetri-
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 143 
 
 cally formed." He gives an animated account of 
 the effect produced upon him by the noble head 
 with its "conspicuously high forehead, finely de 
 veloped in the regions of ideality," by the frequent, 
 unrestrained gesticulation of the speaker as with 
 almost grotesque emphasis of voice and manner he 
 denounced certain editors that had aroused his ire 
 by their treatment of exciting topics connected with 
 the Mexican war. 
 
 Having now passed in rapid review the labors of 
 the editor and critic, the biographer*, the orator 
 and politician, we are left to consider the short 
 stories and poetry that saw the light during these 
 busy years. The volumes that fall under these 
 categories would be considered numerous for any 
 other man than Simms ; but though numerous, they 
 can be easily grouped, and only two will require 
 special notice. And as poetry rightfully has the 
 place of honor over prose, we may consider Simms's 
 poetry first, in spite of the fact that it is only by 
 courtesy that we can apply the term "poetry " at all 
 in his case. 
 
 Seven volumes of serious verse and one lengthy 
 satire of local interest are certainly a sufficient 
 tribute for one man to pay to his muse in eight 
 years. It is true that some of these productions do 
 not extend to a hundred pages, but they amount in 
 the aggregate to a formidable quantity of printed 
 matter. First in order of time was "Donna Flo 
 rida" (1843), an avowed imitation of Byron, in 
 which Ponce de Leon takes the place of Don Juan.
 
 144 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 This youthful production had been left unfinished, 
 and Simms's long preface gave no sufficient rea 
 son for its subsequent publication, especially in an 
 incomplete form. Next came a series of sonnets 
 entitled "Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fan 
 cies " (1845), which may be left for fuller consider 
 ation. This small volume was followed by a larger 
 one, called "Areytos, or Songs of the South" 
 (1846). Simms had borrowed the word " Areyto " 
 from the native language of Cuba, and he did his 
 best to introduce it into English, being ignorant, 
 perhaps, of the fact that Sir Philip Sidney, in the 
 "Defence of Poesy," had forestalled him by nearly 
 three hundred years. The collection graced by 
 this pretty name consisted in the main of juvenile 
 love lyrics. It was followed by "Lays of the 
 Palmetto " (1848), a patriotic tribute to the valor 
 of the Carolina regiment of that name in the Mex 
 ican war, and by the cumbrously named volume 
 "Atalantis: a Story of the Sea; With the Eye and 
 the Wing Poems chiefly Imaginative." In the 
 latter publication he included a revised edition of 
 "Atalantis," and a collection of such of his poems 
 as seemed to have their source in the imagination 
 rather than in the fancy. This Wordsworthian 
 experiment was hardly successful, except for a very 
 spirited paraphrase of Isaiah xxi., entitled "The 
 Burden of the Desert." The long list of his poet 
 ical ventures is concluded by "The Cassique of 
 Accabee " (1849) a pathetic Indian tale which 
 is even now not unreadable and by "Sabbath
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITER AEY ACTIVITY. 145 
 
 Lyrics " (1849), a collection of biblical paraphrases 
 more remarkable for their pious than for their 
 poetical qualities. An unpublished work of this 
 period is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Timon 
 of Athens " for the stage, made at the request of 
 Edwin Forrest. For some reason or other the 
 manuscript was left on Simms's hands, and it now 
 lies among the numerous literary effects bequeathed 
 by our author to his heirs. 
 
 In considering the volume of sonnets ambitiously 
 entitled "Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fan 
 cies," it is only fair to say at the outset that they 
 will be used as a text to point some remarks on 
 the chief characteristics of Southern poetry in gen 
 eral. Their intrinsic value is slight; nevertheless 
 Simms thought fit to publish them twice, once se 
 rially in the "Southern Literary Messenger," and 
 shortly afterwards in a tiny volume. There are 
 eighty-four of these quatorzains, for with a few 
 exceptions they cannot be called sonnets, most of 
 them evidently modeled upon Wordsworth's least 
 meritorious efforts of a similar nature. Occasion 
 ally a legitimate sonnet of the Shakespearean type 
 occurs, since Mr. Theodore Watts 's discussion 
 of the sonnet in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica" 
 one is warranted in writing thus, and then the 
 poet is evidently at his best. The wonder is that 
 he did not see that the stricter his form, the better 
 his poetry became. But neither he nor any other 
 ante-bellum Southern poet seems to have seen this 
 fundamental truth of poetic art. The Southern
 
 146 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 poet was too easy-going to succeed in any form of 
 verse that required patience and skill. He pre 
 ferred a less hampering stanza than the sonnet in 
 which to display his genius, and so, as might have 
 been expected, he seldom displayed any genius at 
 all. Mr. Stedman was right when he said "that 
 a collection of the earlier Southern poetry worth 
 keeping would be a brief anthology; " but he was 
 wrong when he spoke of Wilde and Pinkney sing 
 ing " their Lovelace lyrics," unless indeed he had 
 reference to those careless, slipshod poems that 
 make one wonder how they could ever have been 
 written by the author of "To Althea from Prison." 
 It is almost an insult to the memory of the real 
 Lovelace to speak of his perfect work in connec 
 tion with even the best of the early Southern lyrics. 
 For although Pinkney 's "A Health" and Wilde's 
 "My Life is like a Summer Rose" and Cooke's 
 "Florence Vane " are poems of decided merit, they 
 nevertheless fall far short of that perfection which 
 is characteristic of the best Caroline lyrics. The 
 present writer will not be suspected of denying that 
 in many respects these Southern cavaliers, who 
 sang of love and wine and sunny skies, were like 
 their dashing gallant prototypes, who sang of their 
 lady-loves and fought for King Charles. They 
 were alike in many particulars and they took much 
 the same easy view of their art, but and the dif 
 ference is immense the Southern poet never by 
 any chance sang one pure and perfect strain ; while 
 Montrose and Lovelace and Suckling are names
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 147 
 
 that can never be dissociated from the memory of 
 perfect songs. To take but one example, there is 
 little doubt that more than one Southern gentleman 
 with a taste for pleasant rhyming loved his section 
 as well and fought for her cause as nobly as that 
 ill-fated but glorious soldier and poet, James, Mar 
 quis of Montrose; and yet, though volumes have 
 been filled with the verses written by these gallant 
 men in behalf of the cause for which they fought, 
 though such lyrics as Randall's "My Maryland" 
 and Timrod's "Charleston" are enshrined in our 
 memories, all their volumes and all their poems 
 would not compensate us for the loss of those eight 
 lines beginning "Great, good, and just," wherein 
 Montrose mourned the death of his unfortunate 
 sovereign. 
 
 Now while it may be difficult to explain why the 
 Cavaliers of England should, with their known in 
 difference with regard to a purely literary reputa 
 tion, have written such perfect songs, it is not so 
 difficult to see why the cavalier poets of the South 
 failed to equal them in their flights. The influ 
 ence of the age of Elizabeth had not, yet died from 
 the England of Charles the First. There was lit 
 tle that was commonplace about the life that Love 
 lace and Suckling led. But life in the South, in 
 spite of its picturesqueness in certain directions, 
 was largely commonplace with respect to the things 
 of the mind. A Southerner had to think in cer 
 tain grooves, or else have his opinions smiled at 
 as harmless eccentricities. His imagination was
 
 148 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 dwarfed because his mind was never really free, also 
 because his love of ease rarely permitted him to ex 
 ercise the faculty. He had no incitement to high 
 poetic achievement from the influence shed upon 
 him by great poets of a generation just passed. 
 The models before him were those of statesmen and 
 men of action, and he lost his chances for distinc 
 tion if he proposed to himself any others. Besides, 
 he had no critics, no audience whose applause was 
 worth having. His easy verses were received with 
 a smile by his friends or with extravagant praise 
 by an editor only too glad to fill his columns. 
 When praise was so readily obtained, he naturally 
 took the easiest way to obtain it. 
 
 A study of Southern sonnets will prove the truth 
 of these remarks. The number of regular and 
 commendable sonnets written in the South before 
 the war might, one may venture to say without 
 having read all the quatorzains published, be num 
 bered on the fingers of two hands. Even Hayne, 
 by far the best of Southern sonneteers, wrote such 
 of his sonnets as are really worthy of preserva 
 tion after the war had taught him the necessity of 
 patience and labor. Timrod, who had a greater 
 poetic genius than any of his contemporaries, failed 
 conspicuously in his sonnets ; and this, not because 
 he had nothing to say, but because he did not see 
 the necessity of choosing a proper metrical form. 
 It is not proposed to claim that there are only three 
 forms that the sonnet can assume, but to maintain 
 that poets who use other forms must make good
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 149 
 
 their choice by the success of their experiments. 
 And if a poet goes on writing in forms that are 
 obviously not successful, it is a sign that he does 
 not appreciate the first principles of his art. But 
 this is precisely what Simms and the galaxy of 
 small poets that surrounded him did for years. 
 Hence, nearly all their poetic work, especially their 
 sonnets, must be considered as having failed. 
 They could occasionally produce a good verse or 
 two, they not infrequently had something to say; 
 but their poems rarely approximated perfection, and 
 so perished. Then, too, these poets lacked self- 
 control in other respects. They let their emotions 
 run away with them, and were forever gushing. 
 They could not stop to think whether the subjects 
 they had chosen were capable of poetic treatment. 
 Simms wrote twelve sonnets on "Progress in 
 America," and an equal number on the Oregon 
 question, and one is thankful that he did not see 
 fit to furnish Wordsworth's "Sonnets upon the 
 Punishment of Death," with a companion series 
 upon "The Benefits of Lynch Law." They were 
 also more attracted by poetry of a rhetorical kind 
 than by purer and simpler styles ; but then a fond 
 ness for gorgeous rhetoric was a common Southern 
 weakness. These remarks may be brought to a 
 close with the observation that while the faults that 
 have been mentioned are more or less characteris 
 tic of all early American poets, they are preemi 
 nently characteristic of Southern poets, Poe alone 
 excepted. For Poe was an artist, whatever one
 
 150 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 may think of the subjects on which he exercised 
 his art. 
 
 During these busy years Simms published little 
 in his proper department of prose fiction that need 
 occupy our attention. In the latter part of 1844 
 appeared a ghost story entitled "Castle Dismal." 
 Poe praised this story highly, and as its theme lay 
 in Poe' s own province, his opinion is entitled to 
 carry much weight; a modern reader, however, 
 might be inclined to set less store by the supernat 
 ural portions of the story than by the description 
 of the old homestead from which it took its name. 
 Poe also praised, but less highly, another novelette 
 published shortly afterwards and entitled "Helen 
 Halsey." This was a "border" story, but it was 
 honorably distinguished from "Richard Hurdis" 
 and its class by being shorter and by having a 
 smaller complement of crimes and casualties. 
 
 But the year 1845 saw the publication of a book 
 which seems to have marked for "his contemporaries 
 the culminating point of Simms 's reputation as a 
 writer of fiction. This was the first series of the 
 collected tales known as " The Wigwam and Cabin." 
 A second series appeared in February of the next 
 year. These volumes contained thirteen of the 
 best short stories that Simms had contributed to the 
 various magazines and annuals. As the name im 
 ported, they were concerned with pioneer and In 
 dian life; and they had two obvious advantages 
 over the romances he had previously published on 
 similar subjects. They were shorter, and so gave
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITEEABY ACTIVITY. 151 
 
 little room for the diffuseness which had so con 
 stantly characterized his more elaborate works ; and, 
 depending as they did on a single dramatic inci 
 dent, they furnished no opportunity for the devel 
 opment of a plot in which virtuous heroes should 
 fall into all sorts of diabolical traps set for them by 
 professional villains. Not that the villain does not 
 appear in these tales ; he does most decidedly, but 
 he is precluded from running through a long course 
 of crimes which must be described with a painful 
 accuracy. It is one thing to be present at a crime 
 that is quickly over ; it is another thing to be forced 
 to take cognizance of every revolting circumstance 
 connected with a crime. 
 
 The first tale in the collection was entitled 
 " Grayling, or ' Murder will out. ' " Upon its 
 first publication in "The Gift," for 1842, the Lon 
 don "Examiner " had said: "This is an American 
 ghost story, and without exception the best one 
 we ever read. The rationale of the whole matter 
 of such appearances is given with fine philosophy 
 and masterly interest. We never read anything 
 more perfect or more consummately told." 1 Now 
 in 1845 Poe said in his "Broadway Journal : " 
 " We have no hesitation in calling it the best ghost 
 story we ever read. It is full of the richest and 
 most vigorous imagination, is forcibly conceived, 
 and detailed throughout with a degree of artistic 
 skill which, has had no parallel among American 
 story-tellers since the epoch of Brockden Brown." 2 
 
 1 Quoted in the Knickerbocker for November, 1841. 
 8 The Broadway Journal for October 4, 1845.
 
 152 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 This testimony to the merits of "Grayling" can 
 not be regarded lightly ; but it would seem to be 
 a little extravagant. The tale is certainly well 
 told; but Poe or Hawthorne would have told it 
 much better. They would have paid more atten 
 tion to details, and thus have provided a more ar 
 tistic setting; in other words, they would have 
 thrown an air of glamour over the various events 
 described, and so have strengthened the spell that 
 the successful narrator of a ghost story must cast 
 over his hearers or readers. Simms, on the con 
 trary, pays little attention to details, and tells the 
 story just as we may imagine his grandmother 
 told it to him. Of course it required no little 
 power to do this, but by adopting this simpler 
 method of narration he to some extent lost his 
 hold over such of his readers as were prone to dis 
 belief in the supernatural. And he marred the 
 symmetry of his work when he appended the four 
 or five pages in which his father was represented as 
 giving a rationalistic explanation of the mysterious 
 events that had just been related. Simms's read 
 ers could easily have supplied this explanation for 
 themselves; and it is hard to see how the critic in 
 the "Examiner," who may have been Albany Fon- 
 blanque, could have seen a "fine philosophy" in a 
 process of rationalizing so perfectly simple and ob 
 vious. But " Grayling " is easily accessible, and the 
 reader who is sufficiently interested in the matter 
 can judge for himself as to the merits of the story. 1 
 1 It is given in Griswold's Prose Writers.
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITEEAET ACTIVITY. 153 
 
 As a whole "The "Wigwam and Cabin" was 
 a readable collection of tales which deserved a fair 
 portion of the praise it got. It was certainly bet 
 ter than any of the similar volumes Simras had 
 previously published, and it surpassed most of the 
 collections of short stories with which American 
 authors had hitherto favored their readers. Poe 
 and Hawthorne are of course excepted from this 
 category, for they were artists ; and Irving, in spite 
 of "Rip Van Winkle," can hardly lay claim to the 
 title of story-writer. The book with which it was 
 most frequently compared at the time of its publi 
 cation was Judge Hall's "Legends of the West;" 
 but to this it was manifestly superior. The press 
 at large joined with Poe in its praise, and even the 
 sleepy "North American Review" thought Simms 
 worthy of an article. Up to this time it had stu 
 diously ignored him, while lauding much inferior 
 romancers ; now, through the pen of Professor Fel- 
 ton, it snubbed his more elaborate works, whether of 
 fiction or criticism, but condescended to say a few 
 pleasant things of "The Wigwam and Cabin." 
 Simms had had no great love for New England and 
 her writers for some time, and this article did not 
 increase his affection. It was some compensation, 
 however, to find that in less than a year his tales 
 had been translated into German, and that soon 
 after this an Aberdeen firm had introduced them in 
 the mother country. 
 
 This chapter may be closed with a brief account 
 of Simms's social life during these laborious years.
 
 154 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 It would seem at first thought that he must have 
 been a mere writing machine, but this was by no 
 means the case; for he never sunk the man in the 
 author, and never forgot that there were other peo 
 ple in the world besides himself. There was, of 
 course, little to occupy him at Woodlands besides 
 writing, and the years were marked for the house 
 hold by the birth of a child or the advent of a less 
 permanent visitor like Bryant. But death and 
 birth are inseparable, and Woodlands was often 
 in mourning. Of the six children born between 
 1839 and 1848, three died in infancy. But the 
 fourth child was a son who was destined to live and 
 to transmit his father's name. Two daughters also 
 lived, Qne named Mary Lawson in honor of 
 Simms's old friend, the other Chevillette Eliza, 
 after her mother. 
 
 In his adopted county Simms was a marked 
 and well liked man. At Barnwell Court-house he 
 had a great admirer in Mr. A. P. Aldrich, an 
 able member of the bar ; and a mile from Wood 
 lands lived Gen. David Jamison, another friend, 
 afterwards president of the convention that took 
 South Carolina out of the Union. With these two 
 gentlemen Simms used to exchange frequent visits ; 
 and many were the glasses of hot whiskey punch 
 consumed, and many were the political discussions 
 started, as hot and intoxicating as the punch, but 
 by no means as harmless. Another warm friend 
 was James H. Hammond, governor in 1842 and 
 afterwards United States senator. Simms and
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 155 
 
 Jamison used often to ride over to Hammond's 
 plantation, "Silver Bluff," on the Savannah 
 River; and there more punch was consumed and 
 more political scheming indulged in. Hammond 
 was already looked up to as one not unlikely to 
 take Calhoun's place when that great man should 
 be gathered to his fathers. His orations and 
 pamphlets were destined to have considerable effect 
 on the public mind, but few of them ever saw the 
 light until they had been submitted to Simms for 
 revision. 
 
 About the 15th of May, the family were accus 
 tomed to migrate to Charleston, where Simms 
 owned a house. Here he found more congenial 
 society and a less monotonous life. Among his 
 special friends were Dr. Samuel Oilman, the pas 
 tor of the Unitarian Church, and his better known 
 wife, Mrs. Caroline Gilman, whose "Recollections 
 of a Southern Matron " still retains its value as an 
 interesting and old-fashioned description of a very 
 old-fashioned society. To this lady's exemplary 
 little journal, "The Southern Rose," Simms had 
 long ago been a contributor. Other friends were 
 J. Milton Clapp, a man of some scholarship ; Dr. 
 Samuel Henry Dickson, one of the most cultivated 
 physicians of the city: the Rev. James W. Miles, 
 a remarkable instance of a Southern clergyman 
 steeped in German metaphysics ; William Porcher 
 Miles, his brother, mayor of the city in 1849, and 
 afterwards member of Congress; and finally the 
 witty Richard Yeadon, a veteran journalist and
 
 156 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 leader of the bar. There were, of course, other 
 men of note with whom he was on terms of more 
 or less friendly intimacy: Petigru, William J. 
 Grayson, Mitchell King, the eccentric lawyer, and 
 Col. A. H. Brisbane, professor of belles-lettres at 
 the Citadel Academy. But with none of these men 
 was Simms on such terms of intimacy as he after 
 wards was with a coterie of bright young spirits 
 which shall be described in good time. He was 
 too much inclined to play the leader to suit the 
 tastes of men of his own age, and nowhere is this 
 Johnsonian tendency of his better shown than in 
 a little volume entitled "Father Abbot," which ap 
 peared in 1849. This consisted of a series of let 
 ters originally contributed to the " Mercury," and 
 published in book form only to oblige a firm of im 
 pecunious printers. In it Simms appeared as a 
 Charlestonian Christopher North, Bryant used 
 to compare him to Wilson both in temperament and 
 in personal appearance, the burden of whose 
 monologue was that Charlestonians should not race 
 North in search of health and scenery when they 
 could obtain all they wanted nearer home, on 
 Sullivan's Island, where the officers stationed at 
 Fort Moultrie were good hands at drawing a cork. 
 It should be mentioned, perhaps, that Simms 
 was prevented from going North the summer that 
 "Father Abbot" was written, through fear of the 
 cholera. 1 
 
 1 One of the most interesting citizens of Charleston at this 
 period was Charles Fraser the painter, who, like his friend All-
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITER ABY ACTIVITY. 157 
 
 Of these visits North, which he so much depre 
 cated in others, and against which he wrote a vio 
 lent article in the "Southern Quarterly" that 
 attracted hostile criticism, we have only a few 
 fleeting memorials in the shape of a letter or two 
 received from Duyckinck after his return, or of a 
 stray personal notice in a magazine or newspaper. 
 It is known, however, that he was a familiar figure 
 at literary receptions, and that he was more or less 
 acquainted with all the prominent Knickerbocker 
 authors. With Halleck and Irving and Cooper 
 his relations were friendly, but he was probably 
 never intimate with them. He was frequently 
 thrown, however, with Tuckerman, Cornelius Mat- 
 
 ston, not infrequently wrote some sweet verses. It is not known 
 that Simms was at all intimate with Fraser, but they had a brief 
 correspondence on a subject which is of some interest to students 
 of Southern life and manners. It illustrates very strikingly the 
 growing feeling of hostility in Carolina to anything hailing from 
 New England. In one way or another it had been intimated to 
 Simms that Richard Henry Dana the elder would like to deliver 
 in Charleston some of his lectures on Shakespeare. Simms was 
 at Woodlands at the time, but he entered enthusiastically into 
 the project, and wrote at once to Fraser as a prominent citizen of 
 Charleston, that steps ought to be taken immediately to invite 
 Mr. Dana to the city. Fraser wrote a very chilling reply, on De 
 cember 20, 1849, saying that Dana's whole object was to levy a 
 contribution on the South " in pursuance of a system in which the 
 scholar and the mechanic of New England are always alike happy 
 to exert their best efforts." He continued that if Mr. Dana came 
 he (Fraser) might be induced to go to hear him, but he declined to 
 take any part in inviting him. This unworthy treatment of one 
 man of culture by another is a sad proof of the evil effects being 
 wrought by slavery, and it is all the more curious when we re 
 member that Dana was Washington Allston's brother-in-law.
 
 158 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 thews, William A. Jones, then a prominent con 
 tributor to the " Democratic " and other reviews, 
 Prosper M. Wetmore, F. O. C. Darley, C. F. 
 Briggs, and the latter 's sometime partner Edgar 
 Allan Poe. Of the fair authoresses whom Poe 
 so much affected, we hear little; but Duyckinck 
 does occasionally remind him of Mrs. Kirkland 
 and Mrs. Ellet. In New York, too, he was accus 
 tomed to meet some of his Southern literary friends 
 like Gayarre and Wilde, and possibly Meek. 
 
 There is no need to waste space conjecturing 
 how he spent his time while on these trips. They 
 were not all holiday, for he invariably had proofs 
 to correct. Parke Godwin tells us that he used 
 often to drop into Bryant's office, and there en 
 deavor to convince all who would listen to him 
 that slavery was a much slandered institution. 
 He also made New York a centre from which to 
 make excursions to Nahant and Rockaway; to 
 Great Barrington, where his eldest daughter was 
 at school; and to Poughkeepsie, where he vis 
 ited William Wilson the poet-publisher, whose 
 son, General James Grant Wilson, has pleasantly 
 described a drive which he took with Simms and 
 Duyckinck to visit the retired Paulding at "Pla- 
 centia." 1 
 
 But perhaps the relations of Simms with the only 
 Southern man of letters who was his superior will 
 be of more interest than his relations with the 
 
 1 This visit took place in 1854, but the date is of little conse 
 quence. See Appleton's Cycl. Am. Biog. art. Paulding.
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITER ABY ACTIVITY. 159 
 
 Knickerbocker writers, and they are certainly more 
 fully recorded. After a stinging review of " The 
 Partisan," Poe seems to have paid little attention 
 to Simms until, as editor of "Graham's," in 1841, 
 he wrote or else allowed to be published a very 
 favorable notice of "The Kinsmen," in which that 
 romance was proclaimed to be the best that had 
 been published in America since "The Pathfind 
 er." In 1844, he devoted a few sentences to Simms 
 in the scrappy "Marginalia " he was publishing in 
 the "Democratic Review." Simms had evidently 
 risen greatly in his estimation, for he wrote: "Mr. 
 Simms has abundant faults or had ; among which 
 inaccurate English, a proneness to revolting images, 
 and pet phrases are the most noticeable. Nev 
 ertheless, leaving out of the question Brockden 
 Brown and Hawthorne (who are each a genus\ he 
 is immeasurably the best writer of fiction in Amer 
 ica. He has more vigor, more imagination, more 
 movement, and more general capacity than all 
 our novelists (save Cooper) combined." 1 Poe has 
 sometimes been accused of unduly favoring South 
 ern writers ; but there can be little question that 
 he really believed what he said of Simms. 
 
 In 1845 2 Poe appeared as a still more zealous 
 champion of our romancer. He was now editing 
 the "Broadway Journal" on his own responsibil- 
 
 1 I follow the reprint in Foe's Works (N. Y. 1871), vol. iii. 
 p. 510. 
 
 2 About this time Poe must have met Simms frequently at the 
 house of their common friend, Lawson.
 
 160 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 ity, Briggs having withdrawn, and he was very 
 anxious to secure contributors and subscribers. 
 He evidently recognized Sirams's influence, espe 
 cially in the South, and made a dead set to capture 
 him. Every time he could decently do so he wrote 
 an enthusiastic notice of "Simms's Magazine," 
 carefully selecting for praise articles which he 
 must have shrewdly suspected to have been written 
 by Simms. He did not stop here. William A. 
 Jones had written a paper for the "Democratic" 
 on "American Humor," in which he spoke dispar 
 agingly of Simms's romantic and poetic efforts. 
 Poe replied to him in one of those stinging pieces 
 of personal criticism which he alone could write. 
 Then "The Wigwam and Cabin" appeared, and 
 he seized the opportunity to write a long and ap 
 preciative review of Simms's work in general, an 
 nouncing at the same time, in more than one num 
 ber, that Simms would be a regular contributor to 
 the "Journal." But an unknown writer in the 
 "Mirror" dared to criticise Poe for his attempt 
 to make out that Simms was a better writer than 
 Cooper or Brockden Brown (which, in the case of 
 the latter at least, he had not done), and Poe again 
 took up the cudgels, evaded the main issue, and 
 went off in a tirade against Fay's "Norman Les 
 lie," and the smallness of the Mr. Asterisk who 
 had dared to criticise him in the "Mirror." In 
 the mean time the subject of all this praise was re 
 paying his upholder by publishing in the "Jour- 
 nal " some of the trashiest of his shorter poems.
 
 NEW PHASES OF LITERARY ACTIVITY. 161 
 
 Up to the last issue of the paper, Poe continued his 
 praise and Simms his sonnets and epigrams. It 
 is almost impossible not to believe that Poe was 
 trying by every means in his power to secure 
 Simms's friendship. What he expected to get in 
 return, except poor sonnets and small patronage, is 
 doubtful ; but it is at least certain that Simms was 
 never so continuously puffed in his life as in the two 
 volumes of the "Broadway Journal " for the year 
 1845. Poe subsequently republished in " Godey " 1 
 his review of "The Wigwam and Cabin," and he 
 doubtless, to the day of his death, stood by his 
 protege, Simms on his part retaining warm memo 
 ries of his able and eccentric critic. 
 
 1 See also Poe's Works, yol. iii. pp. 272-6.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ROMANTIC DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 
 
 DURING the twelve years from 1850 to 1861 in 
 clusive, Simms lived in two very different worlds. 
 In both he dreamed dreams and saw visions, the 
 difference between which has been briefly indicated 
 in the heading of this chapter. He went back to 
 his old trade of romance writing, and added sub 
 stantially to the reputation he had already ac 
 quired; he went forward with the rasher spirits 
 of his section, and floundered about in the bogs of 
 doctrinaire politics, in the most horrible world 
 of political nightmares that had lured a brave peo 
 ple on to their destruction, since the days of the 
 French Revolution. It will be necessary, there 
 fore, for his biographer to pass and repass between 
 these different worlds; and if he must regret the 
 time that has to be spent in the world of night 
 mares, he will at least be able to derive some satis 
 faction and he trusts that the same will be the 
 case with his readers from his sojourn, temporary 
 and fleeting though it be, in the world of romance. 
 But as a bad beginning makes a good ending, it 
 may be as well to begin with the nightmares ; and 
 if the reader wonders how any good can come out
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 163 
 
 of nightmares, he is requested to preserve his pa 
 tience for a while. 
 
 When, in the early months of 1849, Simms al 
 lowed the gentlemen proprietors of the " Southern 
 Quarterly Review " to engage his services as ed 
 itor, at the small salary of one thousand dollars, he 
 knew very well that he was making a rash experi 
 ment, but he also knew very well what he proposed 
 to do. He knew that as his salary was guaranteed 
 by the publisher only, a man in wretched health 
 and notoriously impecunious, it was not likely that 
 he would see a penny of his money; he knew also 
 that he would have infinite difficulty in securing 
 contributors and subscribers, and that all the short 
 comings of the review would be fathered upon him. 
 But he still felt sure that the cause of the South, 
 which he believed in with all the intensity of his 
 nature, needed a weighty organ, and he felt in him 
 self an indomitable energy that would overcome 
 many obstacles. In all this he judged wisely. 
 The publisher did die in a year heavily in his debt. 
 Contributors and subscribers were hard to get, and 
 they showered letters upon him complaining of ty 
 pographical mistakes in their uninteresting articles, 
 of the fact that their copies were lost in the mails, 
 or never sent from Charleston, and of a thousand 
 other small matters for which Simms was not re 
 sponsible. If the publishers neglected to answer a 
 letter (and they did things in a slipshod way in the 
 printing offices of slow-going Charleston), Simms 
 was immediately attacked for it, although at the
 
 164 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 time he was far away at Woodlands, cudgeling his 
 brains for the four or five articles he needed to 
 make up the contents of a review that seldom con 
 tained more than ten. 
 
 And yet, in spite of all these difficulties, he 
 achieved something like success, certainly greater 
 success than would have attended the labors of any 
 other man in the South. He took the review when 
 it had reached a condition of worthlessness not 
 easily to be conceived. In two years he had made 
 it a very respectable publication, comparing not 
 unfavorably with its Boston contemporary, the 
 "North American." From paying nothing to his 
 contributors, he advanced to the almost unheard- 
 of extravagance of paying the best of them a dollar 
 a. page. It is true that the new publishers often 
 dishonored the drafts drawn on them by eager con 
 tributors, a proceeding which drew down on 
 Simms's head vials of wrath, but still some pay 
 ments were made, and the quality of the articles 
 improved accordingly. He himself got part of his 
 salary in money and part in the free printing of 
 his books and pamphlets. And all the while he 
 managed, if not to satisfy, at least not to alienate 
 the thirty-six gentlemen proprietors. 
 
 His first proceeding was to obtain contributors ; 
 and in this undertaking his large acquaintance 
 with the leading men of all sections stood him in 
 good stead. His main dependence was, of course, 
 on South Carolina. From that State he got prom 
 ises of assistance from ex-Governor Hammond and
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 165 
 
 his brother, M. C. M. Hammond (a major in the 
 Mexican war, whose articles upon the noted bat 
 tles of that unjust struggle were a chief feature of 
 the review), from Poinsett, Mitchell King, Lieber, 
 Grayson, De Bow, Jamison, Colonel and Mrs. D. 
 J. McCord, Father P. N. Lynch (a well-known 
 and cultivated Charleston priest and afterwards 
 bishop), Rev. James W. and William Porcher 
 Miles, William H. Trescot, B. F. Perry, Profes 
 sor Fred A. Porcher, Dr. R. W. Gibbes, the an 
 tiquarian, and others of less note. Most of these 
 gentlemen kept their promises and some were vo 
 luminous contributors. From Alabama came John 
 A. Campbell, afterwards associate justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, Chancellor J. 
 W. Lesesne, A. B. Meek, journalist and poet, B. 
 F. Porter, and Dr. Nott, the ethnologist. Georgia 
 furnished Henry R. Jackson ; Florida, William H. 
 Simmons; Mississippi, Dr. J. W. Cartwright; 
 Missouri, W. G. Minor; and Virginia, her great 
 apostle of secession, Beverley Tucker. A few bet 
 ter known names, and not confined to the South, 
 were those of M. F. Maury, Brantz Mayer, Pro 
 fessor George Frederick Holmes, Henry T. Tucker- 
 man, and William A. Jones. 
 
 As most of the articles that appeared in the 
 "Southern Quarterly" were unsigned, it is impos 
 sible to say whether all these gentlemen were actual 
 contributors; but from stray information gleaned 
 from Simms's correspondence, it is certain that 
 most of them were. It will be observed that Bev-
 
 166 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 erley Tucker's is almost the only name that is 
 thoroughly identified with the cause of secession ; 
 but the teachings of the review were none the less 
 directed towards this end. Simms did not, in 
 deed, go as far as Tucker tried to push him, but 
 he went far enough. The absence of Calhoun's 
 name is no matter of surprise, for his race was 
 soon to be run; and if it appears to be singular 
 that neither Yancey, nor Toombs, nor Stephens, 
 nor Davis, nor R. M. T. Hunter is known to have 
 written for so pronounced a Southern organ, it 
 must be remembered that some of these gentlemen 
 were by no means eager for secession at any tune, 
 certainly not at this, and also that they very prob 
 ably had the politician's fear of the pitfalls that 
 await the unwary rusher into print. Hunter, in 
 deed, promised Calhoun to write for the review, 
 but he does not appear to have kept his promise. 
 The great leader could make no such promise, but 
 he interested himself in getting other contribu 
 tors, and he wrote Simms a very complimentary 
 letter upon the latter 's assumption of his editorial 
 duties. Simms, it may be remarked here, had all 
 a South Carolinian's veneration for Calhoun, al 
 though he thought that the senator's great genius 
 had overshadowed and blighted the individual prom 
 ise of some of the younger public men of the State. 
 On one occasion at least he was favored with a sight 
 of one of those mysterious letters which Calhoun 
 was in the habit of inditing to his political follow 
 ers. This letter came through Colonel Brisbane,
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 167 
 
 who commented upon it as follows: "Of course 
 you will be discreet, as he requests, with his name, 
 but do study the matter. It will never do to be 
 treated of in print, but we should know the worst, 
 who have to guide and calm [sic] particularly the 
 public mind. Truly, the world is deranged. The 
 poor Pope, the poor French, the poor everybody, 
 but worst [sic] than all, the poor Americans. Are 
 we to fall asunder? Do return these epistles." 
 
 But how had the Union editor of 1832 become 
 the disunion editor of 1849? The answer can be 
 given in one word, slavery. Simms, like nearly 
 all the rest of his party, had held in 1832 that seces 
 sion was an ultimate right belonging to every 
 State, but one to be used in dire emergencies only. 
 He had not thought the "tariff of abominations" 
 a sufficient cause for secession, or even for nullifi 
 cation ; but now he thought that slavery was doomed 
 in the Union, and that it must be preserved as a 
 peculiar institution of the South, therefore the ob 
 vious inference was that a dire emergency had 
 come, and that the Southern States must secede. 
 That secession was wrong in itself was a fact that 
 could find no lodgment in his brain or in that of 
 any other typical Southerner. The reason for this 
 inability to see* clearly what is so obvious now to 
 any tyro in the theory of politics, is to be found in 
 the fact that the South was inhabited by a primi 
 tive people. The right of secession would have 
 been disputed by few leaders of opinion in 1789; 
 it had been alluded to by Izard in the first session
 
 168 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 of the first Congress ; it had been appealed to by 
 States north, east, and west, during the first years 
 of the government. It would have been marvelous 
 if the states-rights doctrine had not been firmly 
 held during the days when the advantages of union 
 were little known, when the States had a mutual 
 distrust of one another, and when there was prac 
 tically no national feeling except against foreign 
 ers. Besides, the states-rights doctrine was in 
 many respects but another name for the doctrine of 
 strict construction, a doctrine sure to be preached 
 by whatever party happened to be out of power. 
 But a doctrine that could be naturally held by a 
 Southerner in 1789 could be naturally held by a 
 Southerner in 1850. It was merely an instance of 
 a "survival," not of the fittest. The fact has been 
 frequently pointed out that Southern men could 
 think only along certain grooves, and that hence 
 their opinions were liable to change only with re 
 spect to the intensity of conviction of those who 
 held them. Therefore the Southerner of 1850 not 
 only clung to the states-rights doctrine, but believed 
 in it with a greater degree of conviction than his 
 ancestor of 1789. 
 
 On the other hand the particularistic tendencies 
 of the Northern States had been more or less coun 
 teracted by frequent intercourse with one another, 
 due to the extension of commerce and public high 
 ways. Whatever was done for the moral, mental, 
 ?md material progress of one State was practically 
 done for them all. The New Englander, too, be-
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 169 
 
 came an emigrant to what was then the West, and 
 he carried with him a stock of religious and politi 
 cal ideas that acted as a leaven to public opinion 
 wherever he took up his abode. North of Mason 
 and Dixon's line, then, there was such a thing as 
 a national feeling, and hence the Northerner of 
 1850 thought very differently on political subjects 
 from his ancestor of 1789. 
 
 In the South there was only one thing that knit 
 the several States together, and that was slavery. 
 Virginia, indeed, helped to populate some of her 
 more southerly sisters, and was therefore somewhat 
 venerated by them ; and the best families in each 
 State knew one another, and sometimes intermar 
 ried. Still, as a rule, each State cared for itself and 
 thought no great deal of its neighbor. Even now 
 there are abundant traces of this insular feeling 
 to be discovered, although it does not often get 
 into print. Yet States knit together by slavery 
 could not develop a true national feeling; for 
 that there must be a consciousness of progress, a 
 desire to share in and -further a common civiliza 
 tion. But progress and slavery are natural ene 
 mies, and the South had no great desire to progress 
 except in her own way, which was really retrogres 
 sion. True, Southern statesmen had done much 
 to found the Union, and even Calhoun himself was 
 always a Union man. Nevertheless, they wanted a 
 Union in which they could be masters, or in which 
 they would be allowed to preserve their own cus 
 toms and institutions. In other words, they wanted
 
 170 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 a hegemony or an anarchic confederacy, not a na 
 tion. Geographical and racial and other consider 
 ations demanded, however, that we should become 
 a nation, to say nothing of the Zeitgeist, and 
 a nation we became accordingly. 
 
 All this is trite enough, but it has to be insisted 
 on in order that we may understand how natural 
 it was that Simms should be able to call himself 
 at one time a Union and states-rights man and at 
 another time a states-rights man anxious to get out 
 of the Union. 1 The Union was not a nation to 
 him, and from the nature of things it could not be. 
 It had been founded on a compact, and he could 
 not see how it could have grown into a nation. 
 Even Webster himself had not been clear on this 
 point, and had argued in the teeth of history 
 against the theory of compact, because he could not 
 shut his eyes to the fact that in the North, East, 
 and West we really were a nation. What puz 
 zled Webster was certainly enough to puzzle 
 Simms ; and because we of the present day under 
 stand our constitutional history better than they 
 did, is no reason for our concluding that either 
 could have judged more wisely with the light he 
 had. They lived in a transition time, and Web 
 ster had his eyes toward the future, while Simms 
 looked back at the past. Both were products of 
 their time and section, and if we do praise the one, 
 we should think twice before we blame the other. 
 
 1 That it was the slavery question which in a few years turned 
 anti-nullifiers into violent secessionists will be plain to any one 
 who makes a careful study of Legare"s letters and speeches.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 171 
 
 Now if it was natural for Simms to believe in the 
 right of secession, it was equally natural for him 
 to believe that the South could not exist without 
 slavery; and, as he saw plainly that slavery was 
 doomed in the Union, he had a logical reason for 
 urging instant secession. His belief in the ne 
 cessity of preserving slavery was as erroneous as 
 his belief in the right of secession ; but he should 
 not be blamed for the one any more than for the 
 other. It has been shown in a previous chapter 
 that the advanced views of the great Virginian 
 statesmen on the evils of slavery could not have ex 
 erted any profound influence upon their section. 1 
 Those views had never been largely shared by the 
 politicians of the more southerly States ; and now 
 when Virginia was in her decadence, it was only 
 natural that a fiery little State, which had never 
 liked her lack of importance in the Union, should 
 come forward proclaiming in trumpet tones that 
 wrong was right, and that if the rest of the world 
 did not like the proposition, South Carolina was 
 ready to fight for it. 
 
 Of course what was wrong to the great Virgin 
 ian leaders and to the States of the North and the 
 nations of Europe was right to South Carolina. 
 Slavery was an institution coeval with the com 
 monwealth itself. There were more slaves than 
 freemen, and some little experience had been had 
 of slave insurrections. The negro had thriven in 
 South Carolina, and it was evident that he was 
 
 1 The opposition to slavery in the Virginia Convention in 1829- 
 30, came chiefly from what is now West Virginia.
 
 172 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 there to stay ; but if the schemes of the abolition 
 ists were carried out what was to become of him? 
 He could not be received as the equal of his former 
 master; and if left to himself, he would speedily 
 sink into barbarism, or become dependent on the 
 State for his support. So argued the South Caro 
 linian, and the more he read abolition tracts the 
 angrier he got. But Washington and Jefferson 
 had argued that slavery was morally wrong. If 
 that were so, then the South ought to liberate 
 her slaves instantly. She was not prepared to do 
 this, therefore slavery must be right. This was a 
 horrible perversion of logic, and if all men were 
 wont at all times to argue thus, this earth would 
 soon be a hell; but there were certainly many 
 things that conspired to blind these advocates of the 
 divine origin of slavery, and now that slavery is 
 a thing of the past, we can afford not to be too 
 severe in our strictures. 
 
 Perhaps it will be as well, however, to let Simms 
 speak for himself on some of these points. He 
 had made up his own mind as to the course to be 
 pursued with reference to slavery ever since the 
 publication of his review of Miss Martineau in 
 1837. In that publication he had agreed with 
 many of the English traveler's remarks on the 
 low tone of morals occasioned by slavery, and had 
 expressed his regret at the passage of laws by 
 South Carolina against the freeing of slaves. Yet 
 while he was willing to see the institution of slavery 
 amended, he could not for a moment contemplate
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 173 
 
 its abolition. The South must calmly and cour 
 teously explain to the North how the case stood, 
 and perhaps all would be well. It was to be re 
 gretted, however, that the slave-trade had been for 
 bidden instead of being regulated. The idea that 
 it was wrong to hold a human being in bondage 
 had gained no entrance into his mind. 
 
 A few years later we find him a little more anx 
 ious about his favorite institution ; but he dreams 
 of a perpetual series of balances between North 
 and South by means of the wild conquests that 
 have already been described, and he contents him 
 self with an occasional threat of disunion if these 
 precious schemes are not carried out. Now after 
 the squabbles over the territory acquired from 
 Mexico, he resigns his schemes for the preservation 
 of the Union, and boldly challenges the rest of the 
 world to admire and fear the South. Disunion is 
 inevitable, but before the step is taken, the South 
 must vindicate herself at every point. Accord 
 ingly he writes in the "Southern Quarterly" for 
 January, 1852: 9 
 
 " We beg, once for all, to say to our Northern 
 readers, writers, and publishers, that, in the South, 
 we hold slavery to be an especially and wisely de 
 vised institution of heaven ; devised for the benefit, 
 the improvement, and safety, morally, socially, and 
 physically, of a barbarous and inferior race, who 
 would otherwise perish by famine or by filth, by 
 the sword, by disease, by waste, and destinies for 
 ever gnawing, consuming, and finally destroying."
 
 174 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 A year later he writes in the same periodical : 
 "If it be admitted that the institution of negro 
 slavery is a wrong done to the negro, the question 
 is at an end. No people can be justified for con 
 tinuance in error and injustice. Once admit that 
 there is a wrong and a crime, and it must be fol 
 lowed by expiation and atonement. In the South 
 we think otherwise. We hold the African under 
 moral and just titles, founded upon his characteris 
 tics, his nature, his necessities and our own ; and 
 our accountability is to the God of both races. 
 We, alone, are in possession of the facts in the case, 
 and our consciences are in no way troubled in rela 
 tion to our rights to hold the negro in bondage. 
 Perhaps our consciences are a thought too easy; 
 but we believe ourselves quite equal to the argu 
 ment whenever we appear before the proper tribu 
 nal. But we are a people, a nation, with arms in 
 our hands, and in sufficient numbers to compel the 
 respect of other nations ; and we shall never submit 
 the case to the judgment of another people, until 
 they show themselves of superior virtue and intel 
 lect." 
 
 All this is nightmarish enough, but it seems tame 
 compared, with a few other utterances which are ap 
 pended in order to show that Simms was not the 
 only or the most extreme instance of a Southerner 
 tortured by nightmares. In January, 1853, he 
 allowed one of his regular contributors, Mrs. D. J. 
 McCord, perhaps the ablest woman of her day in 
 the South, to review "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 175 
 
 the "Southern Quarterly." He himself had been 
 requested by a Philadelphia firm to write a ro 
 mance of Southern life which should serve as an 
 answer to that great book; but he had shown his 
 good sense by declining to give any such opportu 
 nity to the world at large to indulge in invidious 
 comparisons. He preferred the seemingly poetic 
 justice of having the Northern woman answered by 
 a Southern woman; but how could he help feeling 
 the weakness of an answer which ended with such 
 a statement as the following? "Christian slavery, 
 in its full development, free from the fretting 
 annoyance and galling bitterness of abolition in 
 terference, is the brightest sunbeam which Om 
 niscience has destined for his [i. e. the negro's] 
 existence." 
 
 The next quotation is a poetical one, taken from 
 Mr. William J. Grayson's "The Hireling and the 
 Slave," a work which should be studied by all those 
 who are interested in determining what is the great 
 est extent of aberration allowed to a sane and cul 
 tivated mind. It is fair to say that the italics are 
 my own. 
 
 " Hence is the negro brought by God's command 
 For -wiser teaching, to a foreign land ; 
 If they who brought him were by Mammon driven, 
 Still have they served, blind instruments of heaven; 
 And though the way be rough, the agent stern, 
 No better mode, can human wits discern, 
 No happier system, wealth or virtue find, 
 To tame and elevate the negro mind : 
 Thus mortal purposes whate'er their mood, 
 Are only means with Heaven for working good ;
 
 176 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 And wisest they who labor to fulfil 
 
 With zeal and hope, the all directing Will. 1 ' 
 
 But if Mrs. McCord thought highly of the ne 
 gro's lot, the author of the following sentence was 
 equally satisfied with the condition of the master : 
 "I venture to affirm that there are no men, at any 
 point upon the surface of this earth, so favored in 
 their lot, so elevated in their natures, so just in 
 their duties, so up to the emergencies and so ready 
 for the trials of their lives, as are the six million 
 masters in the Southern States." 
 
 It will hardly surprise the reader to learn that 
 this description of a new Utopia, lying to the south 
 of Mason and Dixon's line, was inserted in a speech 
 delivered by a gentleman of Charleston, before the 
 South Carolina legislature, on the propriety of re 
 opening the foreign slave trade. 
 
 But these quotations from printed sources are by 
 no means so interesting or so valuable as some ex 
 cerpts that may be given from a correspondence 
 that has never yet been published. Among the 
 first persons to whom Simms applied for contribu 
 tions for his review was Beverley Tucker, of Vir 
 ginia. Tucker was then (1849) sixty -five years old, 
 and within two years of his death. The half-bro 
 ther of John Randolph, of Roanoke, he displayed 
 many of the qualities of that eccentric genius and 
 came largely under his influence. After practicing 
 law and serving as circuit judge in Missouri, he 
 returned to Virginia, and was in 1834 elected to 
 the chair of law in William and Mary College, a
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 177 
 
 position which he held for the rest of his life, and 
 in which he exercised great influence on the rising 
 generation. His Missouri experiences furnished 
 him with material for his first novel, " George Bal- 
 combe," a work which Poe and Simms praised 
 highly, and which with a little more care might have 
 been made a success. His remarkable and almost 
 prophetic "Partisan Leader" is too well known 
 to require comment. But his chief influence on 
 his generation was exerted by means of his lectures 
 and by his correspondence with public men. In 
 his extreme and able advocacy of states-rights doc 
 trines his career parallels to some extent that of 
 Judge William Smith, of South Carolina, to whom 
 reference was made in a former chapter. 
 
 Simms had no personal knowledge of Tucker, 
 but he admired the latter 's novels, and he felt that 
 the old professor would sympathize with the polit 
 ical objects of the "Quarterly." He did not mis 
 take his man ; for Tucker was until his death the 
 ablest supporter the review had, and moreover he 
 became one of Simms 's warmest friends. 
 
 Many letters passed between them, most of which 
 have been preserved. They met only once, in the 
 summer of 1851, at Richmond; but they poured 
 out their hopes and fears in their letters as though 
 they had known each other for years. Both were 
 fluent and characteristic letter writers, and it is to 
 be hoped that some day the portion of their corre 
 spondence which survives may be given to the pub 
 lic. The scope of this work precludes anything but 
 extracts.
 
 178 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 On January 30, 1850, Simms wrote from 
 Woodlands, whither he had just returned from a 
 visit, with Jamison, to Hammond. After describ 
 ing how they had drunk Tucker's health, he went 
 on as follows : 
 
 " We greatly wished for your presence, and con 
 cluded with the congratulatory thought that the 
 formation of the new republic would bring us won 
 derfully nearer to one another. The idea grows 
 upon us rapidly, and we are pleased to think upon 
 the Southern people. I have long since regarded 
 the separation as a now inevitable necessity. The 
 Union depends wholly upon the sympathies of the 
 contracting parties, and these are lost entirely. I 
 have no hope and no faith in compromises of any 
 kind; and am not willing to be gulled by them any 
 longer. Any compromise now, the parties know 
 ing thoroughly the temper of each, must originate 
 in cowardice and a mean spirit of evasion on the 
 part of the South, and in a spirit of fraud and de 
 liberately purposed wrong on that of the North. 
 Yet you will see that Cass and Clay, still having 
 the flesh-pots in their eye[s], will equally aim at 
 some miserable paltering to stave off the difficulty, 
 and be called a compromise, upon which they are 
 [to] found their new claims to the presidency. 
 These scoundrelly professional politicians are at 
 the bottom of all our troubles." 
 
 He then goes on to say how these matters are 
 being discussed all over the South, and alludes to 
 the proposed Nashville convention, at which Ham-
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 179 
 
 mond hoped to meet Tucker. Simms himself 'had 
 been proposed as a delegate, but had discouraged 
 the use of his name. In this connection he re 
 marked, "I regard the Southern convention as in 
 fact a Southern confederacy. To become the one 
 it seems tome very certain is to become the other." 
 A fortnight later, he writes with dampened ardor, 
 fearing that the convention will do nothing, and the 
 South drift on. Soon after, we learn that he is 
 going to see Hammond again in order to talk pol 
 itics. During his visit he hears that Virginia is 
 going to submit, through the influence of politicians 
 like Rives and Ritchie, and concludes that there is 
 no hope for the South unless things are taken out 
 of the hands of the professional politicians and 
 given to the people. He and Tucker and men of 
 their stamp must take the stump and yet refuse 
 office. Late in May he addresses Tucker, at Nash 
 ville, expressing his doubts whether Tennessee, 
 North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky will come 
 up to the scratch. 
 
 When Tucker returned from Nashville he passed 
 through Charleston, where Simms, who had gone 
 to celebrate the Fourth at Orangeburg, to the re 
 gret of both missed him.. Then a brisk correspon 
 dence ensued between them relative to Tucker's 
 proposed life of John Randolph. Simms got esti 
 mates from his Charleston publishers as to the cost 
 of getting out the work, and urged Tucker to write 
 it. For a time politics are mentioned only in brief 
 sentences, but after the Georgia elections of 1850,
 
 180 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 in which the hopes of the violent secessionists were 
 dismally crushed, he broke forth as follows: 
 "Were I to trust my feelings, I should say to 
 South Carolina, Secede at once. Let our State 
 move per se. But here 's the danger : none of the 
 Southern States stood to the rack in 1833, when 
 South Carolina threw herself into the breach, and 
 owing to the same cause, the faithlessness and 
 selfishness of trading politicians. Were South Car 
 olina to secede, her ports would be blocked up, her 
 trade would pass to Georgia, and the appeal to 
 Georgia cupidity, filled as that State is with Yan 
 kee traders, would be fatal to her patriotism. It 
 would be irresistible in keeping her in her posi 
 tion. The next consequence would be that South 
 Carolina would lose a large portion of her planting 
 population. It would give a new impulse to emi 
 gration. They would abandon their lands and 
 pass to Georgia and the West. Those who re 
 mained, goaded by privation, distress, loss of trade, 
 profit, and perhaps property, would rise up and 
 rend their leaders to pieces. We must at all haz 
 ards goad Georgia to extremities and give her no 
 encouragement in her submission. With South 
 Carolina and Georgia moving for secession the 
 effect would be conclusive upon all the South. 
 British assistance could not be expected unless they 
 were shut out from all the cotton ports. Leave 
 the majority of these open, and they will encounter 
 no contest with the United States for the trade of 
 one or more of our Southern cities. Patience, and
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 181 
 
 shuffle the cards ! Our emissaries must be at work. 
 If we are to incur the imputation of rebellion, we 
 must use all the arts of conspiracy. We must 
 enter the field with the United States, and hold out 
 all the proper lures to buy able politicians. We 
 must show them that a confederacy of thirteen 
 Southern States must have the same foreign and 
 domestic establishment now maintained by the 
 thirty-one States, and thus be able to bid more 
 highly for their support. We must select our men, 
 and give them their price. Meanwhile, events 
 must favor us. The Abolitionists will go on. 
 Quos Deus vuli perdere, prius dementat. The 
 South has but a single interest, and when it is no 
 longer possible for her people to doubt in respect 
 to its danger, there will be no longer difficulty in 
 inciting them to its defense. They may well con 
 tinue to doubt, while Virginia, the mother of 
 States, and as deeply interested as any, shows her 
 self so perfectly quiescent. Our legislature is in 
 session, a very feeble body, but full of spirit. 
 They will probably call a convention of the peo 
 ple." 
 
 To this letter, which was written from Wood 
 lands on the 27th of November, 1850, Tucker re 
 plied from Williamsburg, on the 5th of December. 
 He complained of not getting enough letters from 
 Simms, and showed something of the state of his 
 mind by hazarding the extravagant conjecture that 
 the government was intercepting letters, as it cer 
 tainly had done in 1833. Apropos of Georgia he
 
 182 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 quoted what James Gunn 1 had said forty-seven 
 years before: "The State of Georgia is a damned 
 rascal. I bought her and sold her, and will buy 
 her and sell her again when I please." And he 
 added, "For terms: apply to Messrs. Toombs and 
 Stevens [sic] auctioneers. N. B. Texas scrip taken 
 in payment." 
 
 The first letters of 1851 are taken up with allu 
 sions to the article Tucker was preparing for the 
 "Quarterly," on Garland's "Life of John Ran 
 dolph," an article which eventually appeared and 
 which was horribly scathing. On March 2, Simms 
 wrote from Woodlands, reporting illness in his 
 family and the advent of a visitor in the person of 
 John R. Thompson, editor of the "Southern Lit 
 erary Messenger." Thompson was not inclined 
 to Simms' s views of politics, and the latter urged 
 him to make the "Messenger" a "proper vehicle 
 for the true political opinion of Virginia;" but 
 Thompson could not "rise to the necessity of the 
 case." 2 
 
 On March 12, Simms wrote that South Carolina 
 had called her convention, and must now do or die ; 
 but he added that, Calhoun being dead, she had no 
 pilot to enable her to weather the storm. Cheves 
 ranked next to Calhoun, but he was too much re 
 moved from the public view, and was "said to 
 shrink from the issue which Rhett and the violents " 
 
 1 Probably the first Senator from Georgia, who died, however, 
 in 1801. 
 
 8 The Messenger soon became pronounced enough in its politic*
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 183 
 
 had precipitated. Hammond was unpopular, and 
 hostile to the bank, then a considerable factor in 
 local politics. Khett and his followers taught that 
 if South Carolina chose to secede, she would be al 
 lowed to do so quietly. On which iSimms re 
 marked, " I regard this assumption as quite absurd ; 
 and the question with us is, how shall we force the 
 blockade how force a fight." It was true that 
 if the other Southern States would agree to send 
 out no cotton, the fight would be won, but then 
 there was no spirit of combination in the South. 
 
 To these epistles Tucker sent prompt replies, so 
 that we have no reason to suspect that the govern 
 ment was watching him very closely. On February 
 14, he indulged in reminiscences of Calhoun, and 
 recalle<J how John Randolph had sent him (Tucker) 
 in 1833 to talk with the arch-nullifier, warn him 
 of Clay and his compromises, and bid him not let 
 South Carolina back down. He (Tucker) saw that 
 the Union was a curse in 1820. "I vowed then, 
 and I have repeated the vow, de die in diem, that 
 I will never give rest to my eyes nor slumber to 
 my eyelids until it is shattered into fragments. I 
 strove for it in '33; I strove for it in '50, and I 
 will strive for it while I live, and leave the accom 
 plishment to my boys. Time was when I might 
 have been less desperate, because I could have 
 sought refuge under some emperor or king. But 
 all such refuges are broken up, and there is now no 
 escape from the many-headed despotism of num 
 bers, but by a strong and bold stand on the banks
 
 184 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 of the Potomac. ... If we will not have slaves, we 
 must be slaves." On the 30th of March he con 
 tinued this strain. He had no country now, but 
 if South Carolina would but stand her ground he 
 would have a country. "If not, so help me God, 
 as, if I were twenty years younger, I would go to 
 Russia and claim the protection of the Emperor 
 Nicholas as the very last man in his dominions 
 who would ever think of changing the dominion 
 of a single despot, Porphyrogenitus, for the multi 
 tudinous tyrannies of a mob." 
 
 But a few days previous to this last remarkable 
 twinge of nightmare, he had written a letter which 
 deserves insertion almost entire. However wild 
 it may seem in many respects, it shows that 
 Tucker had a clear enough head to perceive that 
 out of the anarchic confederacy which he and 
 Simms were proposing, and which was attempted 
 in 1861, a dictator, and finally a perpetual despot, 
 would have been sure to arise. 
 
 WILLIAMSBURG, March 17, 1851. 
 
 MY DEAR SIMMS, ... I have just mailed 
 two long letters to Hammond and Governor Means, 1 
 and all because I cannot get your affairs out of my 
 head. The providence of God has placed the des 
 tiny of the South, and of large portions of two 
 sections of the human race, in your hands. He has 
 put it into your hearts to assume this high responsi- 
 
 1 John Hugh Means (1812-1862), then Governor of South Caro 
 lina and an ardent secessionist.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 185 
 
 bility. Do you distrust Him, or do you distrust 
 the righteousness of your cause? If the latter, 
 pause and reconsider. But if not, take Davy 
 Crockett's maxim: "Be sure you are right, and 
 go ahead." The time to redress a wrong is in the 
 moment it is felt to be a wrong. We have felt 
 this for thirty years. Have we gained or lost 
 strength by delay? Has our enemy? Are we 
 more or less united? Are the principles of the 
 Constitution more or less understood? Had the 
 move been made, as it should have been, in 1820, 
 would any one have doubted the right of a State 
 to secede ? When before this would any man have 
 ventured to question it in a Virginia convention? 
 Are our public men becoming more or less cor 
 rupt ? Are the flesh-pots of Washington becoming 
 more or less seductive? Is the number of those 
 who propose to themselves politics as a trade in 
 creasing or diminishing? Is power in our state 
 constitutions passing to or from the hands of that 
 class who "feel a stain to honor like a wound;" 
 who can detect a future mischief in a specious doc 
 trine; who have the sagacity and the boldness to 
 anticipate a coming blow, instead of letting the 
 enemy choose his time for attack? Is your wily 
 adversary eager to precipitate this trial, or is he 
 trying to keep all things quiet, until the old organ 
 ization of parties, to which we have been the victims, 
 can be fully restored? Now! Now!! Now!!! is 
 the accepted time. Now is your day of salvation. 
 You may have discovered that this is my opinion
 
 186 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 from something in my last. But to make this 
 course of action wise, it should be determined on 
 promptly and executed deliberately. This is in 
 general not the true rule, but the reverse of it. 
 But it is true here, because there is no doubt what 
 should be done. Moreover, the case demands 
 preparation before the final step; of which the 
 most important is an understanding with others. 
 Not Virginia. She is sunk in the slough of de 
 mocracy, which has no sense of honor, no fore 
 sight, and is never valiant but against its own in 
 struments. Not Georgia. She has been bought, 
 and her price is in the pockets of those she trusted. 
 Wait for neither, for neither will act until they 
 hear their brother's blood crying from the ground. 
 The scent of blood has a mighty power, and it is 
 the only thing that can rouse the mass of any peo 
 ple who have shaken themselves loose from the in 
 fluence of high and enlightened minds. No rabble 
 ever shook off foreign yoke unless provoked by 
 violence and bloodshed. The peasants of Dale- 
 carlia would have worked in the mines to this day, 
 had not Gustavus come among them. When mobs 
 aim at no more than rapine they may make it ne 
 cessary to use violence to put them down, and as 
 soon as blood flows they become fierce and desper 
 ate, and the emeute becomes a revolution. The 
 wise rulers of England were aware of this on the 
 10th of April, 1848, 1 and the demonstration ended 
 as all demonstrations of mobs do, when it is left to 
 
 1 He refers to the Chartist meeting on Kennington Common.
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 187 
 
 them to strike the first blow. And what are our 
 democracies but mobs? South Carolina alone can 
 act, because she is the only State in which the 
 gentleman retains his place and influence, and in 
 which the statesman has not been degraded from 
 his post. You are fast coming to that hopeless and 
 irreclaimable condition ; and then all hope of action 
 is gone. Work now. " Work while it is yet called 
 to-day, for the night cometh when no man can 
 work." The twilight is already upon you, and 
 hence I fear you will not act even now. And if 
 not now never, never, never ! 
 
 I like your notion of a permanent convention. 
 It chimes in with mine of deliberate action. It 
 will admit of the exercise, in emergency, of such 
 powers as ought not to be committed to any organ 
 ized government. It admits of the appointment 
 of a dictator, if necessary. Unlimited power is 
 often necessary to call forth and concentrate all 
 the resources of a people, and the only way to 
 make it safe is to limit its existence to the dura 
 tion of the emergency. To do this effectually 
 it must be extra-constitutional. In the struggle 
 which may be before you, no government meant to 
 be permanent can be efficient under the constitu 
 tional restraints which are indispensable. What 
 you want is a convention commissioned to see 
 "quod nullum detrimentum capiat respublica." 
 The first use this many-headed dictator should 
 make of this power, in case of war, should be to 
 delegate it to a dictator with one head. If I could
 
 188 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 be sure you would do this, I should be almost 
 wicked enough to wish you a little brush. Such 
 things call out the men worthy to rule, and show 
 the people their value, so that the evil day of de 
 mocracy may be indefinitely postponed. 
 
 Meantime, are you taking no measures to under 
 stand what may be expected from foreign powers, 
 especially England? If any thing of the sort be 
 done, I know it must be done secretly, and there 
 fore I hope it is done. 1 Let England be made to 
 understand the quarrel, and her interest in it, and 
 your enemy will be checkmated at the first move. 
 Let her keep the port of Charleston open, and 
 Georgia will presently join you; you form the 
 nucleus of a Southern confederacy, and we all fall 
 in, one by one. Then if we can but steer clear of 
 the treacherous syrtis of democracy, we may flour 
 ish and be free and happy for the full time of the 
 natural life of a republic. That I take to be 
 about three generations. What befalls our great 
 grandchildren we rarely care. A life or lives in 
 being, and twenty-one years after, is as long as 
 the wise old common law allows any man to control 
 his own property. What folly, then, for any gen 
 eration of men to think itself called to establish 
 political institutions in perpetuity. Our Constitu 
 tion, just sixty years old, is an example. What 
 has become of it ? Except as an engine of power 
 it has no existence. . . . 
 
 1 The letters to Hammond and Governor Means suggested the 
 sending of an accredited agent by the governor.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 189 
 
 We have now seen how these old Southerners 
 talked politics over their toddies and plotted to 
 destroy the Union of their fathers, with the thor 
 ough conviction that they were doing their duty in 
 that state of life to which it had pleased God to 
 call them. That they were doing what some might 
 think wrong they knew very well; but when they 
 questioned their own consciences, their consciences, 
 and they had them, approved their actions. It 
 may be hard for a modern reader, especially one 
 not Southern born, to believe this; but no histor 
 ical truth is more capable of verification. And 
 in face of this truth we must refrain from blam 
 ing them even when we think of the desolation 
 and ruin that followed upon the adoption of their 
 counsels. "Blind leaders of the blind " we may 
 well call them; but we must remember that at 
 least they marched bravely and cheerily into the 
 mire, and that their march and their plight are 
 not subjects for laughter or for frowns, but for 
 tears. 
 
 Many other letters of this period treating of pol 
 itics have fallen under my eyes, some of them very 
 interesting, especially those which Simms received 
 from his friend Major Hammond, the brother of 
 the ex-governor. In all of them secession is more 
 or less preached, and one is enabled to see how 
 thoroughly the people were being educated to the 
 idea of a new confederacy. One also sees how 
 well informed the private gentlemen in the South 
 always were on political subjects. Men who knew
 
 190 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 nothing of the steps Richelieu had taken to central 
 ize France could tell you every step that had been 
 taken in that direction in America since the forma 
 tion of the Union. Nor was this at all remarkable. 
 In the North a man had his business to attend to, 
 and he naturally fell into the habit of letting his 
 politicians manage his politics for him, just as his 
 clergyman attended to his religion. In the South 
 few men had any absorbing business to look after, 
 and hunting and fishing and smoTdng and drinking 
 and dancing could not occupy all their time and 
 thoughts. They had to read sometimes, and tradi 
 tion and the fact that as aristocrats they were born 
 leaders of men, naturally turned their reading to 
 political lines. They never failed to read the 
 political leaders in their favorite newspaper, or to 
 hear a political speech if one were delivered within 
 twenty miles of them. They read law, especially 
 Blackstone, without the slightest intention of prac 
 ticing it, merely in order to train their minds for 
 politics. They read constitutional history for the 
 same reason, but to very little purpose, if one may 
 judge from Calhoun's praise of the constitution of 
 Poland. Hence, one is not surprised to find that 
 the best articles in the "Southern Quarterly" are 
 those that treat of politics, or that Simms, literary 
 man though he was, was often more at home in 
 criticising works like Guizot's "Democracy in 
 France," than he was in criticising contemporary 
 novels and poetry. But perhaps we have tarried 
 long enough in the world of nightmares.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 191 
 
 During the eight years treated of in the last 
 chapter, it was not infrequently announced that 
 Simms had in hand a new historical romance. He 
 probably began several, as was his wont, and then 
 cast them aside. This may have been the case 
 with "Katharine Walton," the concluding volume 
 of his Revolutionary trilogy, which began to appear 
 in "Godey's Lady's Book" in January, 1850. 
 Like too many of his works it was written piece 
 meal, in answer to the printer's cry for copy. 
 
 In one respect at least the romance had not lost 
 by its thirteen years of waiting. During that pe 
 riod even Simms 's friends, who had formerly advised 
 him to avoid writing on home subjects, had been 
 forced to confess that South Carolina was a "very 
 storehouse for romance." He therefore had some 
 hope that his story would find more readers at 
 home than his former romances had done, and he 
 knew besides that his knowledge of the period he 
 intended to treat had greatly increased. A study 
 of his letters of this date shows how conscientiously 
 Simms always labored in gathering materials for 
 his work. He filled commonplace books with in 
 formation culled from all quarters. He was con 
 stantly in correspondence with local antiquarians 
 like General Jamison, asking such minute questions 
 as where the Orangeburg tavern was standing in 
 1780, and what was the tavern keeper's name. 
 Nothing was too trivial to require investigation. 
 Now this thoroughness is an admirable character 
 istic, and a somewhat remarkable one in a South-
 
 192 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 ern author, but its results are not always satis 
 factory. "Katharine Walton" is a much more 
 conscientious piece of work than "The Partisan," 
 but it is not so interesting a romance. It reads, 
 in fact, too much like a carefully prepared social 
 history. 
 
 Simms indeed tells us, in a preface, that he has 
 been thoroughly accurate in his descriptions of 
 life in Charleston during the British occupation, 
 for "Katharine Walton " presents us with the chief 
 characters of "The Partisan," cooped up for the 
 most part within the walls of the stately old city. 
 He even vouches for the historical character of the 
 bits of repartee assigned to his various personages. 
 But this is a claim to be advanced by an historian, 
 not by a romancer; and if Poe had lived to read 
 "Katharine Walton," he would probably have 
 said of it, as he did of "Beauchampe," that its au 
 thor did not rely sufficiently on his own imagina 
 tion. It may be remarked that in one exciting 
 scene, in which a young British officer, " Mad 
 Archy Campbell," drives off with an American 
 beauty and terrifies her into marrying him, 
 Simms seems to have drawn on the imagination 
 of some one else when he thought he was retailing 
 veritable history. One of the descendants of the 
 pair has recently published a denial of the whole 
 romantic episode. 
 
 The chief element, then, that is lacking to the 
 book is that indefinable something called charm 
 which is found in "The Partisan." Simms, in
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 193 
 
 spite of his historical knowledge, in spite of the 
 fact that he was a Charlestonian born, did not 
 move as freely in the city as in the swamp, or 
 among haughty gentlemen and ladies as among 
 plain-speaking troopers and scouts. Hence, al 
 though his romance keeps us moving through excit 
 ing and interesting scenes; although we take an 
 interest in the fortunes of its heroine ; although we 
 feel that we have made acquaintances among some of 
 its characters, we nevertheless lay it down with 
 the conviction that it would have been a greater 
 success had it come from a writer more in sympa 
 thy with the company he was keeping, and pos 
 sessed of an innate understanding of their modes of 
 life and thought. Charleston under British rule, 
 with its patriotic citizens scarce daring to speak 
 above a whisper, and its sycophantic adherents to 
 the royal cause basking in short-lived sunshine, 
 was almost, if not quite, as suitable a theme for 
 the romancer as courtly Williamsburg at the time 
 of the advent of "The Virginia Comedians." Yet 
 John Esten Cooke, although only twenty-four, and 
 with no such store of historical information, or 
 indeed with such native powers to draw on, as 
 Simms, succeeded, in his romance bearing the 
 above title, in transferring far more of the charm 
 of that old-time life to his pages than our veteran 
 romancer did in this work of his prime. 
 
 Cooke, it is true, did not fulfill the promise of his 
 youth ; but this was less his own fault than the un 
 fortunate result of the years of strife through which
 
 194 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 he was destined to pass. He is one of the saddest 
 examples in all Southern history of a man of 
 marked ability wrecked in the turmoil of the 
 times in which his lot was cast. When he came 
 out of the war, the school of fiction in which he 
 had been trained (he always called Simms his mas 
 ter) had seen its best days. He could not change 
 the style of his work to suit the changed tastes of 
 his public, and in his extremity he turned to his va 
 ried war experiences to eke out his literary capital. 
 His "Surrey" and his "Mohun" were, however, 
 huge failures, which should stand as grave warnings 
 to all writers who shall hereafter turn to a period 
 that must sooner or later furnish abundant ma 
 terials to future writers of fiction. If he had only 
 contented himself with writing with soldierly sim 
 plicity his own memoirs, he would have secured for 
 himself an immortality. 1 As it is, he is easily the 
 second Southern romancer after Simms, and per 
 haps, had he been born twenty years earlier, he 
 might have made the South Carolinian look to his 
 laurels. Those laurels, indeed, Cooke never dis 
 puted, and to the day of his death Simms had no 
 warmer friend than the pure-hearted Virginian. 
 
 But Simms did not always fail in his descrip 
 tions of the social life of the Carolina aristocracy. 
 He failed when sympathy and an innate under 
 standing were required, but not when he undertook 
 to satirize the peculiarities and unlovable qualities 
 of that life. The reason for this is obvious. The 
 
 1 Wearing of the Gray is hardly such a book.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 195 
 
 indifference always manifested for his work and for 
 himself by the upper classes naturally provoked 
 him and sharpened his eyes to the obvious faults 
 of his critics. Hence in his novelette, " The Golden 
 Christmas; a Chronicle of St. John's Berkeley" 
 (1852), he gives a very amusing description of some 
 of the oddities produced by six generations of in 
 termarriages between first cousins. His Madame 
 Agnes-Theresa Girardin, gaunt, colorless embodi 
 ment of family pride, walking down King Street 
 like a social barometer, rising and falling, stiffen 
 ing and unbending, according to the blueuess of 
 the blood of the persons she meets, is a really 
 successful creation, even if she is described in 
 broader strokes than our modern story tellers use. 
 This Madame Girardin, who cannot see a woman 
 with a fresh complexion witTiout suspecting that her 
 blood is no better than it should be, and Major 
 Buhner, descendant of one of Locke's palatines, 
 who still drives his old family coach, swears by the 
 English and hates the French, even the Huguenot 
 Carolinians, make what would be otherwise merely 
 a thin love story rather entertaining reading. It 
 is true that, as has been remarked above, Simms 
 is by no means as careful in his sketches as a mod 
 ern writer would be. He does not indulge in 
 any nice character shading, he gives us nothing 
 approaching a photograph; and he never by any 
 possibility charms us by his style. But the condi 
 tions under which he wrote were very different 
 from those which surround the modern writer. He
 
 196 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 was primarily a romancer, and he did his genre 
 work as a pioneer. His public were not educated 
 to the merits of the short story as a work of art, 
 and he did something to make them see, had they 
 cared to open their eyes, that there was a great fu 
 ture in store for that form of fiction. Were he alive 
 and writing now, his immense energy, his keen 
 appreciation of local differences of tone and color, 
 his ability to keep his characters, whether puppets 
 or not, always in motion, would make him a for 
 midable rival to the many younger writers of 
 promise who have to a large extent crowded him 
 off the stage. 
 
 The year 1850 saw, besides "Katharine Walton " 
 and a rather creditable poem delivered at the con 
 secration of Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, 
 another book bearing Simms's name on the title- 
 page. This was "The Lily and the Totem," a 
 volume modeled upon the once popular series of 
 works known as "The Romance of History." 
 Coligny's colonies in North America formed the 
 subject of Simms's new publication, and one is cer 
 tain that the prolific author did more credit to him 
 self and to his subject by writing in prose than he 
 would have done had he stuck to his original inten 
 tion of writing in verse. "The Lily and the 
 Totem " seems to be the only one of Simms's books 
 that has been republished at the South since his 
 death. 
 
 It would not be right to pass to another year 
 without alluding to the large quantity of work
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 197 
 
 done by Simms for his review within this twelve 
 month. He wrote exactly ten articles, few of 
 them under forty pages, and four "critical no 
 tices," in which upwards of one hundred and fifty 
 books were passed in review. Of course many of 
 these were skimmed, but some, it can be perceived, 
 were carefully read. The quality of the criticisms 
 is by no means as bad as would be expected from 
 the quantity. One is never sure of entirely sane 
 criticism from Simms, he was much too full of 
 crotchets; but certainly the man who could write 
 thus of Browning forty -one years ago is entitled to 
 some regard : 
 
 "Browning is no common verse maker. He is 
 a writer of thought and genius, of peculiar and 
 curious powers as an artist; subtle, spiritual, and 
 singularly fanciful, and, though as yet unacknow 
 ledged, is one of the master minds of living Eu 
 ropean song. . . . He will grow slowly in public 
 esteem, and finally, when his peculiar phraseology 
 shall become familiar to the ear, it will compel an 
 admiration which is very far from general now. 
 . . . His claim to the regards of those who require 
 a deep and earnest thought in verse, as well as 
 music and fancy, is beyond question. All such per 
 sons must take him to their studies, if not to their 
 hearts." 1 
 
 When American authors were in question, 
 Simms was loyal to his Knickerbocker friends over 
 the rising influence of New England. In 1845, he 
 1 Southern Quarterly Review, Sept. 1850, pp. 25G-7.
 
 198 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 had a few pleasant words for Longfellow and Em 
 erson, and more for Lowell, but when he came, in 
 1850, to review "A Fable for Critics," which he 
 was loath to attribute to Lowell, he seems to have 
 made up his mind that no abolitionist was worthy 
 of any manner of praise. Emerson is now little 
 more than an idiot, Lowell, if he wrote the poem 
 under review, is a base-hearted slanderer, whose 
 publishers are warned to cease disseminating his 
 abominable opinions on the subject of slavery. 
 Alcott is a silly pilferer from Plato, fit only for 
 ridicule, which he gets, by the way, from Simms 
 in no measured quantity. Still, as the abolitionists, 
 taken by and large, did in spite of their sincerity 
 lack sweetness and light to a certain extent, at least 
 from a Southern standpoint, our critic's aberrations 
 may be pardoned even when he is unjust to so 
 large-hearted a man as Emerson. It is a little 
 curious, however, to find him writing, in 1849, 
 that there is no imaginative faculty in New Eng 
 land, and proving it by the fact that most of the 
 earlier American romancers owed their genius to a 
 friendlier climate where, indeed, they were not 
 puffed as New England's literary sons were wont 
 to be. One recollects that Hawthorne had written 
 some tales worthy of being called imaginative, and 
 that '"The Scarlet Letter" was already in his 
 mind; and that Judd had written "Margaret" 
 some four years before. But Massachusetts and 
 Carolina were not on easy terms in 1849, and the 
 "North American" had once upon a time been 
 needlessly severe on Simms.
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 199 
 
 The year 1851 calls for little special notice. 
 Simms produced as usual a large quantity of man 
 uscript, but the only thing of any consequence that 
 was published was his "Norman Maurice; an 
 American Drama," which appeared in the "South 
 ern Literary Messenger," and was shortly after 
 issued in pamphlet form. This was a bold, if 
 unsuccessful undertaking. Simms grappled with 
 a problem which has yet to be solved, and thought 
 he had solved it by combining a strictly Amer 
 ican plot with a method of presentation taken at 
 second hand from his favorite Elizabethans. He 
 has no difficulty in making a Philadelphia lawyer 
 and a Missouri politician talk in blank verse which 
 is sometimes so bald that it seems a very appropri 
 ate medium of expression for the absurd political 
 theories advanced by the latter. As a matter of 
 course the reader is at one moment breathless at the 
 author's audacity, and at the next moment laugh 
 ing at his crudities of thought and expression. 
 How could it be otherwise, and who shall say that 
 Simms did not have the courage of his convictions 
 when he could write such lines as these? 
 
 " Another action, 
 
 The insurance case of Fergnsson and Brooks, 
 Secures him handsome profits." 
 
 There is certainly no lack of melodramatic ef 
 fect. The villain commits a forgery and accuses 
 the hero of the crime; he likewise threatens the 
 virtue of the hero's wife, and that Roman dame 
 stabs herself and her would-be ravisher, and ends
 
 200 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 the play just at the time her husband is elected 
 United States senator from Missouri. There is 
 plenty of swagger, a duel, long speeches in high- 
 sounding verse, enough in all conscience to keep 
 reader or spectator awake. Yet the world was no 
 nearer having a good modern drama than it had 
 been before Simms made his heroic experiment. 
 
 "Norman Maurice" was praised highly in cer 
 tain quarters, for example, by the "Interna 
 tional Magazine " and by G. P. R. James, and 
 it went through four editions. In 1854 an aspiring 
 actor, Mr. George K. Dickinson, put it in rehear 
 sal at Nashville, Tennessee, and wrote Simms an 
 exuberant letter about the triumph to be expected 
 for it at St. Louis. But although Dickinson filled 
 an engagement at St. Louis during the Christ 
 mas holidays of 1854, and although the "Missouri 
 Republican " contained a glowing notice of Mr. 
 Simms 's new American play, which would shortly 
 be produced at the People's Theatre, the perform 
 ance did not come off, and Dickinson's letters 
 suddenly ceased. 
 
 The year 1852 was more prolific in publica 
 tions than 1851 had been. Not satisfied with his 
 novelette, "The Golden Christmas," Simms gave 
 it a companion tale of Georgia life, entitled "As 
 Good as a Comedy." This was issued anony 
 mously, and the story was put in the mouth of a 
 Tennessean, with a dialect somewhat familiar to 
 modern readers. The book rather belied its name, 
 for the humor is not as abundant as the critic in
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 201 
 
 the "Lady's Book," who thought that Simms ex 
 celled Dickens in many respects, would have had 
 his readers believe ; but it has the merit of describ 
 ing certain phases of Georgia life very well, and the 
 account given of an ante-bellum Southern race 
 course has lost none of its interest with the lapse of 
 years. A third novelette was "Marie de Berniere: 
 a Tale of the Crescent City," originally contrib 
 uted to T. S. Arthur's "Home Gazette," and after 
 wards published in a volume along with other tales. 
 The reader who thinks that Mr. Cable is here fore 
 stalled is decidedly mistaken. The local color in 
 troduced is of very thin quality, and the only thing 
 French about the story is a not entirely unsuccess 
 ful attempt to make a stalwart Tennessean play the 
 part of a Vidocq. Had Simms so chosen he could 
 have won a fair reputation in a school of fiction best 
 represented, perhaps, by the name of M. Fortune 
 du Boisgobey. 
 
 We must not linger, however, over these stories 
 which Simms dashed off with such astonishing ease, 
 nor can we pause to consider his second and only 
 acted play, " Michael Bonham," for that will occupy 
 us hereafter. Our attention must be confined to 
 what is certainly the most humorous, and in many 
 respects the best sustained, of all our author's 
 works, "The Sword and the Distaff," which now 
 appears under the revised but hardly improved title 
 of "Woodcraft." This romance is the fourth in 
 the connected series of Revolutionary romances, but 
 from the time of its action it should properly have 
 been the sixth and last.
 
 202 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 Its hero is Lieutenant Porgy, who, upon the ad 
 vent of peace, has left the swamp camps of Mar 
 ion, and is returning full of honors and debts to 
 his dismantled plantation. Just before reaching it 
 he manages to rescue a fair widow neighbor of his 
 from a band of ruffians, who are trying to kidnap 
 a train of slaves she is bringing home. A boy 
 reader would take intense delight in the exciting 
 description Simms gives of the swamp fight that 
 took place at this juncture. An older reader would 
 feel that he was getting an admirable description 
 of the wild and lawless condition of Carolina just 
 after the Revolution. As the story progresses the 
 desolation that has fallen upon plantation and plan 
 ter alike is described in a graphic way; and the 
 evil effects that a period of strife is likely to exert 
 upon weak or vicious natures are forcibly exempli 
 fied in some of the leading characters. One of 
 these, Bostwick the squatter, typifies most accu 
 rately the Southern poor white at his very worst. 
 Both for its interest and for its faithfulness to the 
 truth of history, the romance deserves to be read. 
 
 The humor which, for a wonder, Simms suc 
 ceeded in putting into "The Sword and the Dis 
 taff " is not of a high order, but it is humor never 
 theless. It emerges from the situations in which 
 the characters find themselves, rather than from 
 anything they say. Porgy is urged by his one- 
 armed Sancho Panza, Sergeant Millhouse, who is 
 also a reminiscence of Corporal Trim, and of other 
 worthy followers of romantic heroes, to better his
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 203 
 
 fortunes by marrying the rich widow he has res 
 cued. He half consents, and is led into all sorts of 
 blunders which make him vow to live and die a 
 bachelor. Although it is obvious that Simms is 
 only following Smollett afar off, and although his 
 most amusing scene is taken bodily from an Eliza 
 bethan play, he certainly succeeded in writing an 
 entertaining book; and one is disposed to regret 
 that its proposed sequel, "The Humors of Glen 
 Eberley," was not written and handed over to the 
 Georgia publisher who applied for it. 
 
 Passing now for a moment from romance to pol 
 itics, I may remark that during this period Simms 
 did not cease to indulge his dreams of public office. 
 It is true that he refused to allow his friends to 
 push him forward as a candidate for Congress from 
 the Charleston district; but it was otherwise with 
 diplomatic sinecures, and he did not discourage the 
 applications made to President Taylor by Major 
 Hammond through the former's private secretary, 
 Bliss. A mission to one of the minor courts would 
 have pleased our author greatly, but the overtures 
 of his friends seem to have been received in silence. 
 Then Hammond, who was a capital fellow if one 
 may judge from his letters, began to urge the 
 claims of "Father Abbot," as he delighted to call 
 Simms, to the presidency of the South Carolina 
 College, which had just been resigned by ex-Sen 
 ator William C. Preston. But although Simms 
 would not have disliked this position, no sinecure,
 
 204 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 by the way, he knew too well the prejudices ex 
 isting against him to hope for such an appoint 
 ment. He accordingly contented himself with 
 helping to spread tfye doctrine of the divine origin 
 of slavery by contributing to a volume that rejoiced 
 in the contradictory title of "The Pro-Slavery Ar 
 gument." His fellow-contributors were Chancel 
 lor Harper, one of the most prolific and forcible of 
 all these apologists, ex-Governor Hammond, and 
 Professor Dew. 
 
 Soon after, he gave this volume a companion by 
 reissuing, under the title "South Carolina in the 
 .Revolutionary War," two articles that had at 
 tracted some attention on their first publication in 
 the "Southern Quarterly Review " for 1848. The 
 name of the volume would suggest that Simms had 
 again taken up the role of historian ; but such was 
 not primarily the case. The essays, indeed, pos 
 sessed some little interest to historical students, but 
 they were first and foremost the work of a heated 
 controversialist. Lorenzo Sabine had just (1847) 
 published his "American Loyalists," and had there 
 in taken occasion to make some reflections upon 
 the support South Carolina had given to the cause 
 of the Revolution. His remarks had been by no 
 means violent, and not entirely ill founded. But 
 that South Carolina should be criticised at all, 
 much less by a New Englander, was more than 
 Simms could stand. He rushed at Sabine, and all 
 loyal Southerners proclaimed that the Yankee had 
 been demolished. As far as I can gather, Simma
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 205 
 
 did succeed in convicting Sabine of one gross er 
 ror, which the latter at once acknowledged in his 
 correspondence, and subsequently corrected in the 
 second edition of his laborious and honest work. 
 He also opposed to Sabine 's charges many facts 
 which went far towards explaining South Caroli 
 na's alleged apathy in the great struggle for free 
 dom. Here he was on his own ground, and al 
 though Sabine, after mature consideration, did not 
 retract his charges, those charges should be read 
 only in connection with Simms's vindication of his 
 native State. When, however, our hot-blooded 
 Southerner proceeded to carry the war into Africa 
 by retorting against New England very much the 
 same charges that had been made against South 
 Carolina, he was betrayed into gross indiscretions, 
 and injured his own cause. Sabine had been dig 
 nified, however malicious his criticism in the eyes 
 of a loyal Southerner; but Simms was decidedly 
 undignified in his coarse strictures on the memo 
 ries of New England patriots like Stark and Put 
 nam. One can only contrast his petulance and 
 want of courtesy with the quiet tone in which Sa 
 bine alluded in his second edition to the attacks 
 that had been made upon himself . Still, as this 
 petulance and want of courtesy subsequently put 
 Simms into one of the most trying positions of his 
 life, and as many excuses are to be made for a man 
 who was living in the heated atmosphere of South 
 Carolina in those days of agitation, it will be a well 
 to dismiss, for the present, the unpleasant subject.
 
 206 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 It is certainly a great step from these controver 
 sial tracts to the first collected edition of our au 
 thor's poems. Simms and many of his friends had 
 long been wishing for such a consummation ; now, 
 in 1853, there appeared two thick volumes with the 
 following sufficient title : "Poems Descriptive, 
 Dramatic, Legendary, and Contemplative." Surely 
 the public had now an ample opportunity to form 
 its judgment upon Simms's merits as a poet. But 
 that judgment had been practically formed already, 
 and there was nothing in these volumes to change 
 it. On the score of quantity Simms had had no 
 thing to fear for a long time ; on the score of qual 
 ity he was neither better nor worse off than before, 
 his youthful "Atalantis" still remaining his most 
 considerable work. The mildest judgment that 
 can be passed is that the volumes were needless, 
 a judgment which is equally applicable to another 
 publication of this year, "Egeria," a collection of 
 what Simms regarded as the best passages or 
 "gems" to be found in his multifarious prose 
 writings. 
 
 In the early part of 1854, Simms made a short 
 but successful lecturing tour to Washington, Rich 
 mond, Petersburg, and perhaps other places; then 
 he settled down to the routine work of editing his 
 review, which was beginning to drag, and relieved 
 the tedium, we may imagine, by observing what the 
 critics had to say of a certain romance he had just 
 published under the pseudonym of "Frank Cooper." 
 This was "Vasconselos: a Romance of the New
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 207 
 
 World," which had been begun several years before, 
 and cast aside for pleasanter or more profitable work. 
 The wanderings of De Soto had affected Simms's 
 imagination ever since his own southwestern excur 
 sions in company with his father; and he had al 
 ready pointed out in print what a great romance 
 could be constructed out of the materials furnished 
 by the adventures of the ill-fated discoverer. He 
 was now to try his own hand on the theme, and to 
 endeavor to atone for his unsuccessful "Damsel 
 of Darien." Hitherto the fascinating period of 
 Spanish discovery and conquest had been more 
 fortunate in its historians like Irving and Prescott 
 than in its romancers like Bird or Simms. But 
 could not something be done to raise the ro 
 mancer's end of the balance? Simms resolved to 
 try, and, in order not to be handicapped by his 
 previous failure, to try under an assumed name. 
 Redfield, his publisher, suggested " Frank Cooper " 
 as a good nom de plume, and so that gentleman's 
 romance appeared, and was duly read and praised. 
 It was dedicated to that typical old New Yorker, 
 Dr. John W. Francis, whose burly, honest friend 
 ship and hospitality Simms had long enjoyed. 
 
 If our author desired merely to surpass his own 
 youthful efforts and those of Dr. Bird, he had his 
 wish; but if he also expected to write a great ro 
 mance, he failed of his purpose, and the cause of his 
 failure lay mainly in himself. " Vasconselos " 
 showed much power and no little audacity. De 
 Soto's preparations for his departure from Cuba,
 
 208 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 his tournaments and fetes, are described in a way to 
 make one read on, which is a sign of some success 
 on the part of a romancer writing more than twenty 
 years after Scott's death. The long and perilous 
 marches of the Spaniard, his encounters with hos 
 tile tribes, his gradual disillusionment, and finally 
 the pathetic catastrophe of his death on the banks of 
 the great river he discovered, are all graphically de 
 scribed, and give interest and vitality to the book. 
 When, however, the romancer leaves the chronicles 
 behind and relies upon his own imagination, he fails 
 dismally; because, as Poe had said of him before, 
 he cannot distinguish between what is merely re 
 pulsive and what is genuinely pathetic and tragic. 
 His heroine is calculated to move our pity and our 
 regard, save for the horrible relation she sustains to 
 her brutal uncle, through no fault of her own, but 
 rather through the morbid imagination of her de 
 lineator. The hero, Philip de Vasconselos, would 
 excite our admiration for his virtues, and our indig 
 nation for the wrongs he undergoes at the hands of 
 De Soto, the defects of whose character are un 
 pleasantly exaggerated, were it not that Simms 
 will not let him bear those wrongs as a true knight 
 should, but makes him become a traitor to his 
 countrymen, content to sink into a savage chief, 
 who finds a solace for the disappointments of love 
 and ambition in the embrace of a loving and noble, 
 yet still barbarian princess. Bird, though far in 
 ferior to Simms in general power, did not make 
 this last fatal mistake when he might easily have
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 209 
 
 done so. Juan Lerma, in "The Infidel," suffers 
 as much from the jealousy of Cortez as Vasconselos 
 does from that of De Soto; nevertheless, with 
 stronger temptations to become a traitor, he remains 
 true to his race, and so preserves our regard. 
 Vasconselos forfeits it, and so Simms's romance 
 fails to fulfill the chief condition of the existence 
 of any romance, namely, that it should purify and 
 elevate the minds and hearts of its readers. 
 
 But "Vasconselos " had merits to which Simms's 
 next book can lay no claim. " Southward Ho ! a 
 Spell of Sunshine," which was published towards 
 the close of 1854, has been described as a kind of 
 Southern "Decameron," but there is no real reason 
 for so handicapping a book already weighted down. 
 It is true that its effects upon the morals of undis 
 ciplined readers are less questionable than those of 
 Boccaccio's masterpiece; but then no one ever ac 
 cused the "Decameron " of being dull, and "South 
 ward Ho ! " certainly is. It was simply a device to 
 enable its author to publish once more some of his 
 long-forgotten short stories. They are told by a 
 party of passengers who are traveling by sea from 
 New York to Charleston, and their only merit lies in 
 the fact that they are welcome interruptions to the 
 would-be facetious conversations which these pas 
 sengers carry on. It must be admitted, however, 
 that as noted points upon the coast are passed, the 
 book lights up with an occasionally felicitous de 
 scription; and it is interesting to find Simms 
 prophesying that in fifteen years the mountains of
 
 210 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 North Carolina, a region with which he was thor 
 oughly familiar, would be a fashionable resort for 
 Northern invalids and pleasure seekers. Could he 
 wake up now at Asheville he would probably rub 
 his hands, and think himself a better prophet about 
 the future of health resorts than about the future 
 of his proposed Southern confederacy, a subject on 
 which he permitted himself to say a few words in 
 this very olla-podrida we are considering. 
 
 But although the only portion of "Southward 
 Ho ! " which would be likely to interest a modern 
 reader has been pointed out, it would not be fair 
 to dismiss it without the statement that some of 
 Simms's friends, like Duyckinck, Hayne, and 
 Cooke, found it charming, because, as they said, it 
 was written just as Simms talked. I for one am 
 willing to believe that the hearty, genial author was 
 a much better raconteur over a glass of punch than 
 I have found him to be in the pages of his pseudo- 
 Decameron. 
 
 In the meantime, Redfield had been bringing 
 out a revised edition of the best of the romances. 
 Darley was engaged to illustrate them, and Simms 
 occupied his spare hours at Woodlands in correct 
 ing obvious blunders and youthful extravagances, 
 and in writing new and affectionate dedications to 
 old friends like Yeadon, who had stood sponsor 
 to "The Partisan" nearly twenty years before. 
 "Martin Faber," "The Damsel of Darien," "Pe- 
 layo," and a few other immature efforts and fail-
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 211 
 
 ures, were allowed to sink into oblivion, but most 
 of the border and revolutionary romances were 
 given a fresh circulation and were favorably re 
 ceived by the press. Perhaps it was this revival of 
 interest in his work that made Simms produce four 
 romances in the next few years, three of them wor 
 thy to rank with any he had previously written. 
 
 In the spring of 1854 he was evidently at work 
 on a new revolutionary romance, for he was getting 
 the minute information he always required from 
 correspondents like Jamison. The following spring 
 this romance, " The Forayers, " was finished, and 
 he was working on its sequel, " Eutaw, " slowly, 
 indeed, as he wrote to his friend John J. Bockie, 
 of Brooklyn, for he had a multitude of smaller 
 matters on his hands ; still he hoped to finish it 
 by July. He did not do this, probably because 
 he went to work on " Charlemont, " the sequel to 
 "Beauchampe," a romance which should never 
 have been begun and which has been noticed suffi 
 ciently. But "Eutaw" was finally finished in 
 February, 1856; for its author had had a respite 
 from some of his duties and could at last concen 
 trate his attention upon it. His round of lectures 
 at the various villages of South Carolina was over, 
 and he had cleared some money and increased his 
 reputation. His editorial career also was over, for 
 ten years; for the last publisher of the "Quar 
 terly," Mortimer, had insisted on quarreling with 
 his editor, and had presumed to think that he him 
 self could edit as well as publish. That he did not
 
 212 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 carry out his threat was due in part to the fact that 
 the creditors he had made as publisher determined 
 to sue him. How much Simms got of his hard 
 earned salary, which may have been increased after 
 the first year to fifteen hundred dollars, is not to 
 be ascertained, but is easy to guess at. 1 
 
 Probably no other man in the South could have 
 done as much as Simms did between the inception 
 of "The Forayers" and the completion of "Eu- 
 taw." As we have seen, he was editing his review 
 during most of the time, was writing "Charle- 
 mont," was delivering lectures and addressing fe 
 male seminaries, and was revising his old romances. 
 In addition to this he was taking his usual trips, 
 talking politics, having a play represented at 
 Charleston, contributing to Duyckinck's "Cyclo 
 paedia of American Literature," and superintending 
 all the planting at Woodlands, owing to the pro 
 tracted ill health of his father-in-law, Mr. Roach. 
 In the face of all this, could- he be expected to 
 write anything that should be worthy of the atten 
 tion of posterity? It would hardly seem so; and 
 3 r et "The Forayers" and "Eutaw" show no sign 
 of flagging powers, and are among the most inter 
 esting of all the Revolutionary romances. 
 
 They take up the history of that exciting period 
 just where it was left at the close of "Katharine 
 Walton," at the point "when, for the first time, 
 the British were made to understand that the con- 
 
 1 The Southern Quarterly was published for one year longer 
 (1856) at Columbia, (S. C.), under the editorship of Dr. Thornwell
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 213 
 
 fliet was doubtful." The enemy have now con 
 tracted their operations to what is called the "low 
 country," and Lord Rawdon has yielded his com 
 mand to Colonel Stewart, whom Greene expects to 
 engage in the last great battle at Eutaw Springs. 
 The partisans Marion, Sumter, Pickens, Horry, 
 Lee, and the two Hamptons are dashing about the 
 country, harassing the enemy almost as much as 
 does the intense heat of the season. It is with 
 these rapid and daring movements that "The For- 
 ayers " is chiefly concerned, and we perceive the 
 appropriateness of its sub-title, "The Raid of the 
 Dog-Days." "Eutaw" of course concerns itself 
 with the battle and its consequences. 
 
 Many of our old friends, such as Marion and 
 Porgy, reappear, and we once more glide through 
 dark lagoons and tangled undergrowth until we 
 find ourselves at rest in a partisan camp. We are 
 present for the twentieth time, perhaps, at the mid 
 night sally, and witnesses of Tory and British atro 
 cities. But new characters are introduced who 
 soon win our regard, even though they are by no 
 means to be considered creations. Again we have 
 the story of the true love that does not run smooth 
 because a villainous Tory will presume to fall in 
 love with our hero's sweetheart. As usual our hero 
 insists on falling in love with the daughter of an 
 enemy, and in running all sorts of risks to obtain 
 a meeting with her. Another old manor house is 
 besieged by ruffians, and once more the common 
 places of romances in general are brought in to eke
 
 214 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 out the materials which have already stood Simms in 
 good stead for a dozen or more volumes. But we 
 read on, and grow excited when the heroine is car 
 ried off, and when her little brother is subjected 
 to a captivity the rigors of which he contrives to 
 abate by interesting his jailer, Hell-Fire Dick, in 
 the adventures of a gentleman of a somewhat dif 
 ferent persuasion, Bunyan's immortal Pilgrim. 
 We find ourselves marveling at the scouts who pur 
 sue impossible trails over impossible places; we 
 grow boys again, and long to shoot with such un 
 erring precision and to ride such races and fight 
 such battles as these hearty partisans do every day 
 without thinking that there is anything unusual in 
 it. Of course if our blood is cool, we are apt to 
 pause over tangled sentences, and to wonder why 
 Simms would fancy he was writing romance when 
 he was really writing history. But many a boy has 
 read "Eutaw" without stopping for these things, 
 and there are probably older readers who do the 
 same. 
 
 As romantic in its incidents as either of these 
 stories, but much fuller of faults, was the play 
 "Michael Bonham," which was produced at the 
 Charleston Theatre on the nights of March 26 
 and 27, 1855. But for the curious fact that the 
 hero of the play was then living in Carolina, and 
 that it was the only one of Simms' s numerous dramas 
 that was ever performed, all mention of it could be 
 safely omitted. Simms had written it some three 
 years before, and had published it both in the
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 215 
 
 "Southern Literary Messenger" and in pamphlet 
 form. This latter fact does not seem to have been 
 remembered in Charleston, for the "Courier" of 
 the morning of the 26th stated the contrary, and 
 proceeded to give its readers sonie idea of what 
 they might expect. General Milledge L. Bonham, 
 the hero, was a well-known man. He had been one 
 of the most daring associates of Bowie and Crockett 
 and Travis, or, as the "Courier" somewhat mag- 
 niloquently put it, of "the small, but hardy band 
 of crusaders who first planted near the 'Great 
 River ' of the American Spaniards the lone-star 
 flag, which has been lovingly and blandly absorbed 
 by the standard sheet of Stars and Stripes." More 
 recently he had served with distinction in the 
 Mexican war, and it was probably this fact which 
 suggested to Simms the propriety of writing his 
 drama. No thought of having it performed seems 
 to have entered Simms' s mind until Dickinson put 
 "Norman Maurice" in rehearsal and the manager 
 of the Charleston Theatre applied for permission to 
 have "The Golden Christmas" dramatized. 
 
 The faults of "Norman Maurice" are all con 
 spicuous in "Michael Bonham," and how the origi 
 nal of the romantic hero could have been flattered 
 at finding himself carried through a series of duels 
 and intrigues and cut-throat adventures is hard to 
 conceive. It is true that in some respects it was 
 an acting play ; that is, it might have suited a non- 
 critical audience who wanted plenty of movement 
 and striking situations, and who did not care a
 
 216 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 straw whether the dramatist observed the laws of 
 dramatic construction, or whether he borrowed 
 wholesale from other dramatists. This is the most 
 that can be said for it. The only character that is 
 at all interesting is David Crockett, who is ab 
 surdly represented as following Bonham into San 
 Antonio as a subordinate when the latter could not 
 have been much over twenty years old. In short, 
 when read in the closet the play seems to be the 
 work of a precocious youth of eighteen rather than 
 of a practiced writer and constant student and spec 
 tator of the drama. 
 
 Still, as one performance was to be given in aid 
 of the Ladies' Calhoun Monument Association, 
 and as the newspapers had pronounced it to be ad 
 mirable, a large audience greeted it with "frequent 
 demonstrations of applause," which "testified their 
 gratification at this offering from the pen of one 
 who" had "ministered to Southern readers in all 
 the modes of authorship." "The cast was a good 
 one," continued the "Courier," "and the general 
 effect was more than creditable." 
 
 Simms was so nervously interested in the success 
 of his offspring that he could not be induced to at 
 tend; but he wrote his friend Major Hammond an 
 account of the two performances, and intimated that 
 a third might be given which would put some much- 
 needed money into his pocket. Whether his ex 
 pectations were realized does not appear, but it is 
 certain that he was slightly chagrined at the fact 
 that the audience did not call for the author. To
 
 DBEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMAEES. 217 
 
 this Hammond replied rather humorously : " What 
 author was ever called out in your goodly city? 
 I never heard of one. The folks did not know the 
 compliment, they paid the very highest known to 
 them, and quite unusual, too, that of encoring 
 scenes! A song might do. But scenes! it is 
 surely a rara avis. Saw Bonham (M. L.) yester 
 day. His vanity is flattered. He was gratified at 
 your success, of which I told him." 
 
 But the good people of Charleston who ap 
 plauded Simms's scenes were fast preparing to be 
 come actors in a much more serious drama. It 
 must not be imagined that, because little has been 
 said of politics lately, the atmosphere about our 
 fiery Southerner was clearing. Not a whit of it. 
 It is true that he no longer had Beverley Tucker's 
 letters to stir him up ; but he had the two Ham 
 monds and Jamison to talk to, and the "Charles 
 ton Mercury " and his review to write for, and 
 numerous squabbles among the politicians at 
 Washington to keep up with, so that he was by no 
 means free from nightmares even while he was in 
 dulging in his most delightful romantic dreams. 
 When Tucker died, it occurred to Simms that a 
 biography of such a distinguished exponent of the 
 states-rights school would be an excellent handbook 
 of politics for the rising generation. He accord 
 ingly set to work to secure information, but for 
 some unknown reason soon forebore the task. He 
 was by no means idle, however, in sowing the seeds 
 which Tucker had scattered broadcast. Besides his
 
 218 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 published articles and editorials, and the stray 
 allusions made to politics in his books, he used 
 his lecturing tours and his vast correspondence as 
 means to the desired end. Young politicians out 
 side of South Carolina wrote to him for advice. 
 One, a Mr. Henry Hughes, of Port Gibson, Mis 
 sissippi, author of a "Treatise on Sociology" which 
 Simms had praised in the "Mercury," addressed 
 him as the acknowledged head of the new school of 
 Southern thinkers, and remarked, "When we Mis- 
 sissippians want to reason about home matters, we 
 turn towards South Carolina as naturally almost as 
 pagans to an oracle." 
 
 His correspondents upon this subject were not 
 all Southerners. When good, facing-both-ways 
 gentlemen from the North wrote school histories 
 of the United States, they were always particularly 
 anxious to get a statement from Simms that their 
 books contained nothing that would shock a South 
 ern mind. When a fiery editor of Columbia, 
 South Carolina, attacked the "Lady's Book" for 
 an article containing alleged abolition sentiments, 
 Mr. Godey, after wringing his hands and exclaim 
 ing that he had published his magazine for twenty 
 years and not one line against the South had it 
 contained, wrote to Simms beseeching that he 
 would testify to the standing of the "Lady's 
 Book " on all such questions and pacify De Leon, 
 the editor of the "Telegraph." Simms did pacify 
 De Leon, but Godey wrote presently to say that 
 he wished some one would help him out of the
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 219 
 
 scrape he was in at the North for having declared 
 that he had never published a line against the 
 South. The poor man was deeply aggrieved that he 
 could not be allowed to face both ways forever. 
 Yet he was no worse than thousands of his coun 
 trymen, who by their submission to the adherents 
 of the false god of the country did almost as much 
 to rivet his chains upon that country as his more 
 vociferous priests and worshipers, and who have 
 received their due reward for all time at the hands 
 of the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Certainly 
 nothing that he wrote to Simms was worse than the 
 following sentence which is taken from a letter 
 written by an author not unknown to fame : "I am 
 half a Southerner myself; and although I hap 
 pened to be the son of honest Northerners, I am 
 not averse to a single item peculiar to your part of 
 our common country." It really seems as if some 
 of his Northern friends were a little afraid of 
 Simms 's vehement way of expressing opinions 
 which were natural enough in him, but which were 
 rather unnatural in persons born in colder lati 
 tudes. It may be suspected that he liked better 
 those friends who, like Bryant, could hold to their 
 own opinions and still be sincere in their affection. 
 That he was vehement enough in expressing his 
 opinions, no matter where he was, is evidenced by 
 the fact that General James Grant Wilson once 
 heard him say, suiting his gestures to his words: 
 "If it comes to blows between the North and the 
 South, we will crush you [the North] as I would 
 crush an egg."
 
 220 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 He was soon to be taught that a man can go 
 too far in the expression of opinions very honestly 
 held. Although some stray lectures delivered in 
 Northern cities had not been very favorably re 
 ceived, he conceived the project of undertaking an 
 extended lecturing tour in the winter of 1855. 
 He does not seem to have matured his plans, al 
 though he gave several lectures in small Southern 
 towns ; but in the fall of the following year he did 
 succeed in arranging quite an elaborate programme. 
 He was to begin his lectures in New York in re 
 sponse to an invitation signed by George Bancroft, 
 with whom his relations were always friendly, Wil 
 liam Cullen Bryant, Evert A. Duyckinck, Dr. 
 John W. Francis, and others. Then he was to go 
 as far east as Boston and as far west as Detroit, 
 taking in many of the intermediate towns. 
 
 Accordingly, on the night of Tuesday, Novem 
 ber 18, 1856, he addressed a fair audience in Dr. 
 Chapin's Church of the Divine Unity, on a sub 
 ject identical with that of a volume heretofore 
 criticised: "South Carolina in the Revolution." 
 The "Herald" of the following morning described 
 him as being prepossessing in appearance, with a 
 very rapid and forcible delivery. The " Tribune " 
 said that the lecture lasted for an hour and a half, 
 and was heard in silence save for a round of ap 
 plause at the end. It closed its notice with a brief 
 comment on the bad taste of the lecturer in intro 
 ducing his subject with some remarks derogatory 
 to Mr. Sumner.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 221 
 
 The second lecture was fixed for Friday, No 
 vember 21. The "Herald" of Saturday, under 
 the head of "City Intelligence, " contained the fol 
 lowing reference to it: "Simms's Lecture. W. 
 Gilmore Simms, according to advertisement and 
 previous announcement, was to deliver the second 
 lecture of his course in the Rev. Dr. Chapin's 
 church last evening; subject, 'The Appalachians: 
 a Southern Idyll, descriptive of Southern Life, 
 Manners, Scenery, etc. ' Five minutes before eight 
 o'clock, the time appointed for the lecture, there 
 was an audience of three persons present. The 
 church was well lighted and warmed, but none of 
 the committee having appeared, the sexton only ad 
 mitted the people to the vestibule of the church. 
 At eight o'clock, there was an audience of six per 
 sons, not including the reporters. From eight to 
 eight and a half a few others dropped in, making 
 an audience, all counted, of thirteen gentlemen and 
 four ladies. The lecturer still not appearing, the 
 gas was turned off, the doors locked, and the assem 
 bly adjourned sine die, looking at their tickets." 
 
 Two days later the "Herald" commented edito 
 rially upon Simms's failure, declaring that he had 
 received fair treatment and that his undertaking 
 had been a quixotic one. It remarked that a 
 South Carolina audience would not have let off so 
 easily any Northern lecturer that might have gone 
 thither to defend Charles Sumner. The " Tribune " 
 of the same day, November 24, gave nearly two of 
 its editorial columns to a defense of the position
 
 222 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 previously taken by Sabine as to the services of 
 South Carolina in the Revolution. It also advised 
 Simms to omit his allusions to Sumner, adding: 
 "It will be quite time enough to vituperate Mr. 
 Sumner after having first refuted him." The 
 "Evening Post," in consideration, no doubt, of Bry 
 ant's friendship for the lecturer, alluded to the 
 dismal affair as briefly and favorably as was pos 
 sible under the circumstances. 
 
 Simms naturally felt deeply hurt at what had oc 
 curred. He acted quietly, however, and canceled 
 all his other engagements, refusing to accept invi 
 tations from certain quarters where it was believed 
 that the New Yorkers had dealt too harshly with 
 him. The Southern press took up his cause and 
 several strictly Southern lecturing tours were 
 mapped out for him. But he was in no humor for 
 public speaking at present, even to friendly audi 
 ences, and he returned to the quiet of Woodlands 
 with a sigh of relief. After two months' rest he 
 took the platform again, and lectured at Baltimore, 
 Washington, Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk, and 
 other Southern towns, with decidedly more success. 
 At some of these places he eschewed political sub 
 jects, preferring such unobjectionable themes as 
 "The Choice of a Profession " and "Early Southern 
 Discoverers." 
 
 It is impossible not to sympathize with our im 
 pulsive lecturer in his troubles, even though they 
 were of his own making. It was so natural to him 
 to think that any cause he espoused must be right,
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 223 
 
 that he never stopped to think whether it would be 
 expedient to endeavor to convince other people of 
 the truth of that cause. In his eyes Sumner had 
 been guilty of the grossest of crimes in slandering 
 the South and its institutions, and although he 
 would probably have hesitated to use the historical 
 bludgeon himself, he had no hesitation in saying 
 that Sumner had got only what he deserved. In 
 the South it was common enough for a man's body 
 to be responsible for the indiscreet use of his 
 tongue, and not many Southerners could under 
 stand how a few blows had made Sumner a hero 
 throughout the North. We can see now, of course, 
 that it was in the worst possible taste to make any 
 allusion, save one of regret, to the horrible occur 
 rence which had deprived Massachusetts of her able 
 and fearless senator. And yet if slavery could 
 make a man who was dearly beloved and esteemed 
 by those who knew him best descend to such un 
 called-for violence, it could make an eager partisan 
 defend that violence even in the house of its vic 
 tim's friends. We do not know exactly what 
 Simms said, 1 for his remarks were extempore, and 
 he probably went further than he had intended; 
 but it is almost certain that if he were living now, 
 he would be one of the first to condemn his own ut 
 terances. For the man, if an impetuous partisan 
 and a good hater, was nevertheless as honest as the 
 day, and full of that true courage which is never 
 
 1 The Times, which gave the longest account of the lecture, did 
 not give the language used in reference to Sumner.
 
 224 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 ashamed to make confession of wrong-doing. He 
 really thought that he was doing the New Yorkers 
 a great favor in opening their eyes to the baseness 
 of Sumner and the abolitionists, and when he 
 found that he would not be listened to, he was 
 more hurt and sorry than angry. He could not 
 show his face even to his friends, and he apologized 
 to one of them for not visiting him in the following 
 pathetic words : " I had been so defeated, so disap 
 pointed of my expectation, that I was in no mood 
 for society, even that of friends; and I hastened 
 home to my forest cover, with the feeling of the 
 wounded hart flying to the thicket." 
 
 From the time of this retreat from the hostile 
 North to the day of his death, Simms was in many 
 respects an altered man. Hitherto he had borne 
 up against unfavorable criticism on the part of 
 strangers and of his own people, and against con 
 stant pecuniary embarrassments, with a strength 
 and cheerfulness that were sometimes marvelous. 
 His constitution had seemed to be herculean; no 
 amount of labor could daunt or fatigue him. In 
 his amusements as well as in his routine work he 
 had always shown a vim and zest that had been 
 the envy and despair of milder and soberer spirits 
 like Timrod and Hayne. But now a change comes 
 over him, which is probably more visible to the bi 
 ographer who has studied his correspondence than 
 it was to the friends who saw him from day to day. 
 It is a gradual change, premonitions of which are 
 not wanting even before this memorable autumn of
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 225 
 
 1856. He begins to refer to the state of his 
 health, declares that he is overworked, and that 
 what he has already accomplished has been to little 
 or no purpose. He is becoming a great sufferer 
 from catarrh and from some of thdse painful al 
 though not dangerous complaints which are natural 
 to sedentary men, dyspepsia and its attendant 
 ills. He becomes more querulous, although he can 
 never conceal his natural kindness of heart. He 
 complains of imaginary slights from old friends 
 like Thompson of the "Messenger;" he exagger 
 ates a brief depreciatory notice of his poetry in the 
 New York "Tribune" into a persistent endeavor 
 on the part of the North to destroy his literary rep 
 utation. He takes a gloomier view of the political 
 situation, for which he had abundant cause apart 
 from any predisposition to paint things in dark col 
 ors, and finally he allows over two years to go by 
 without publishing anything of note. This last 
 fact will be perhaps accepted as sufficient proof 
 that something was wrong with him. 
 
 Nor was he suffering entirely from a morbid 
 fancy, as some of his friends tried to assure him. 
 His health was being gradually undermined by the 
 great strain to which he had been subjecting his 
 constitution for years; his wife and children, too, 
 were not infrequently ailing, and his father-in-law 
 was a chronic sufferer from the gout. Unless he 
 could keep his eye on everything that went on at 
 Woodlands, he was certain to lose money. The 
 negroes were lazy and pampered, the overseers
 
 226 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 were thoroughly unreliable. He had come to the 
 plantation with a debt on his shoulders, and in 
 twenty years he was still in arrears, although prob 
 ably not to the same parties. His romances were 
 no longer in such demand as when "The Yemassee " 
 went through its three large editions in a year, nor 
 were the magazines so glad to take his pieces or to 
 pay as good prices for them. And yet his family 
 was a large one, and his children were year by year 
 becoming a greater expense to him. It is no won 
 der, then, that a tone of despondency becomes no 
 ticeable in his letters, which deepens as fire sweeps 
 away his possessions, as his children die of dread 
 diseases, as, to crown all, the storm bursts upon his 
 beloved South and changes the whole face of things. 
 Yet although despondency masters him at times, 
 he still has many things to make him happy, and is 
 far from succumbing to his fancies and drifting 
 into an idle, purposeless life. He still plans new 
 romances even if he does throw all save one aside; 
 he still dreams of dramatic success, and writes sev 
 eral acts of a Spanish tragedy, "Don Carlos; " he 
 still collects revolutionary letters and documents, 
 and slowly revises his history of South Carolina ; 
 and finally he still dabbles in poetry and amuses 
 himself by collecting his fugitive " Areytos " from 
 forgotten magazines and from no less forgotten vol 
 umes of his own. But while this work was plea 
 sant if not profitable, he had another and a greater 
 source of pleasure. He had always been a sociable 
 man, and had longed for intellectual companion-
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 227 
 
 ship, which up to this time he could get only at 
 the North. As a young man he had never been 
 freely admitted to the cultured society of his na 
 tive city, and although this exclusiveness had re 
 laxed as he had grown older and had made his 
 mark, it had nevertheless continued to wound him, 
 and to render him uncomfortable even in the com 
 pany of such of his contemporaries as had long since 
 acknowledged his worth. Now, however, he had 
 gradually gathered around him a band of younger 
 men, all ambitious and some devoted to that severe 
 mistress, Poetry, whom he had himself served with 
 such devotion and with so little success. These 
 men looked up to him, and were zealous in fighting 
 his battles. They formed a club and placed him 
 at the head, and many were the rubbers of whist that 
 were played amid the clinking of glasses and the 
 clatter of tongues eager to improve the few rare 
 moments when "Father Abbot" was not address 
 ing his disciples. At such meetings Simms was in 
 his element. There was no one to contradict him, 
 hardly any one to criticise him, and he discoursed on 
 every imaginable subject with equal ease and vol 
 ubility. What cared he if neighbors two blocks 
 away astonished his host the next morning by smil 
 ing, and saying, "So you had Simms with you 
 last night. We could hear him declaiming as far 
 away as my house." He went on, and thundered 
 out one of Daniel Webster's speeches, or a back 
 woods joke, or a poem of his own, as the case might 
 be. And the club applauded, even if Timrod did
 
 228 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 occasionally give vent to an undertone expression 
 of weariness. 
 
 Among the leading members of this little co 
 terie were Paul Hayne, Henry Timrod, John 
 Dickson Bruns, Samuel Lord, Junior, F. Peyre 
 Porcher, Richard Michel, Hayne's brother-in- 
 law, Samuel Y. Tupper, and Benjamin J. "Whaley. 
 Of these, Bruns, Porcher, and Michel became phy 
 sicians, and Lord and Whaley followed the law. 
 Mr. Tupper was the business man of the party, and 
 Hayne and Timrod were the literary Bohemians. 
 It is strange that of these nine men the only three 
 that have died are those who were specially inclined 
 to lead a literary life, for Dr. Bruns wrote some 
 pleasant verses and was a man of great taste and 
 cultivation. 1 Of the survivors, all save Dr. Michel 
 are representative citizens of Charleston, that gen 
 tleman having made Montgomery, Alabama, his 
 home. The club they formed was a purely infor 
 mal affair, which met in turn at the houses of the 
 members; but when he was in Charleston Simms 
 would generally have the meetings in his own 
 house, which he facetiously called his "wigwam." 
 
 In the mornings, when he was not at his prin 
 ter's, he would while away the hours in the office 
 of one of his proteges, generally in that of Lord, 
 who doubtless was not as overrun with clients in the 
 
 1 Since the above was written, Mr. Tupper has died, full of 
 years and honors. I have to regret the fact that on my visit to 
 Charleston to gather materials for this book, I was unable to have 
 a conversation with Mr. Tupper. Extracts from letters written 
 by that gentleman will be given hereafter.
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 229 
 
 latter part of the fifties as he is to-day. In the af 
 ternoons Russell's book-shop was the rendezvous. 
 It was situated on busy King Street, and looking 
 out from it one could get a glimpse of Charleston's 
 best people passing and repassing. Seats were 
 arranged in the rear of the shop for special guests 
 such as Simms, Petigru, Mitchell King, who used 
 to buttonhole Russell and repeat long passages from 
 the Latin poets, to the worthy bookseller's great 
 bewilderment, Alfred Huger, Dr. Samuel Henry 
 Dickson, and Father Lynch. There, too, might 
 be found Simms's spare and ascetic friend, the 
 Rev. James W. Miles, and the Hon. William J. 
 Gray son, Petigru 's biographer and the apologist 
 for slavery. Of the younger men, besides Hayne 
 and Lord, one has been spared to win a world-wide 
 reputation for the classical knowledge of which he 
 had just laid the foundations in Germany, Dr. 
 Basil L. Gildersleeve. Another recent graduate 
 of a German university was David Ramsay, a 
 grandson of the historian, destined soon to lose his 
 life at Fort Wagner; and as brilliant as any of 
 those that have been mentioned was William R. 
 Taber, the young editor of the "Mercury," who 
 was killed in a duel in September, 1856. 
 
 One outcome of these gatherings at Russell's was 
 the appearance in April, 1857, of the first number 
 of "Russell's Magazine," the best publication of 
 the kind ever undertaken in Charleston. Hayne 
 and a Mr. W. B. Carlisle were the editors, but 
 Hayne did all the work. He was gallantly assisted
 
 230 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 by Simms, Timrod, Brnns, Grayson, and others, 
 and the magazine ran for three years. It died in 
 March, 1860, and it excites our admiration for 
 having lived so long in such days of confusion. 
 It stood up stanchly for everything Southern, par 
 ticularly for Simms ; whenever Hayne got a chance 
 to praise his friend, he did so, and did it well and 
 honestly. Sometimes he overdid the matter, as 
 when he wrote or allowed to be published a se 
 vere critique on Dana's "Household Book of Po 
 etry," because Simms had not been represented 
 therein. And when the "Courier" refused to 
 publish Dana's calm and fair letter of remon 
 strance, which was afterwards sent to Simms and 
 is still preserved, a further proof was furnished of 
 the harmful effects of the spirit of sectional hatred 
 and suspicion that was abroad in the land. 
 
 But Hayne, though at times a partisan where his 
 friends were concerned, was essentially a noble 
 spirit; the noblest and most charming character, 
 with the exception of Simms, to be found among 
 Southern writers, one is almost tempted to say, 
 among Southern gentlemen. He wrote the most 
 delightful letters of all of Simms 's correspondents. 
 He was always loyal, always frank, always the gen 
 tle lover of what seemed to him to be true and beau 
 tiful. When he traveled from home his genial 
 nature won the love of men like Fields and Long 
 fellow. No more simple and refined gentleman 
 was ever nurtured in the old South. If he lacked 
 Simms's vigor and powers of varied accomplish-
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 231 
 
 ment, or Timrod's artistic self-control, his genius 
 was, nevertheless, more receptive, more keenly alive 
 to the beauties of nature and of art. Without lack 
 ing virility, he charms chiefly by his possession of 
 traits of character distinctively feminine. His gen 
 tleness, his receptivity, his delicacy of feeling, his 
 facility in surrendering himself to the domination 
 of master minds, are all feminine traits, some of 
 which have impaired the value of his poetry, but 
 which have combined to give a unique charm to his 
 personality. 
 
 "Russell's" was not Hayne's first editorial un 
 dertaking. He had helped W. C. Richards on 
 the "Southern Literary Gazette," a weekly pub 
 lished in Charleston during the early fifties, and 
 had been associate editor of a Washington weekly, 
 the "Spectator," which was published by a cer 
 tain Augustus Harvey. This position had been got 
 for him by Simms, who never tired of helping his 
 friends; but it may be inferred from Hayne's let 
 ters that he reaped neither honors nor pecuniary 
 rewards from his connection with the short-lived 
 "Spectator." It is pathetic to learn that after all 
 his exertions he could secure only five subscribers 
 for Harvey's journal in the whole city of Charles 
 ton. But Hayne was primarily a poet, and what 
 ever may be thought of the quality and permanence 
 of his work, the brave struggle he made to live for 
 the sake of his art will always endear him, not only 
 to his own people, but to all who can appreciate 
 heroic self-devotion to noble ends.
 
 232 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 Now a man who could deliberately set himself 
 apart in the old South to lead a literary life needed 
 constant encouragement, and there was no one 
 more willing and able to give this encouragement 
 than Simms. His acquaintance with Hayne began 
 early in the fifties, and to the day of his death 
 he never ceased to urge the latter on to new 
 achievements, or to prophesy great things of him. 
 Hayne has left on record his youthful veneration 
 for Carolina's greatest writer, and he never failed 
 to acknowledge how much Simms had done to 
 stimulate him to creative efforts. It was not the 
 mere puffery of a clique when Hayne wrote rever 
 ently and lovingly of Simms in "Russell's," and 
 when Simms reviewed Hayne's poems in two long 
 articles in the "Mercury." Both men felt what 
 they said; both knew that they were striving for a 
 common end, for the advancement of their art, 
 and especially the art of their section. And if 
 their efforts were immature, if they are destined to 
 be far surpassed by the creations of writers nur 
 tured under more favorable conditions, it is idle to 
 think that they worked in vain, no honest work 
 is ever in vain, for their examples must stimu 
 late future workers along the same lines, and their 
 productions must be credited with having at least 
 kept in exercise the literary faculty, whatever it 
 may be, of the Southern people at a time when it 
 looked as if that faculty must perish from disuse. 
 
 A man of greater genius than Hayne, but 
 equally indebted to Simms for both sympathy and
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 233 
 
 substantial help, was Henry Timrod, son of the 
 poet-mechanic, William H. Timrod. Simms had 
 known Timrod 's father, and he was among the first 
 to acknowledge the genius of the son. His rela 
 tions with Timrod do not seem, however, to have 
 been as constantly cordial as his relations with 
 Hayne ; and it is safe to say that the fault was not 
 entirely on Simms' s side. Hayne, in a letter writ 
 ten from Charleston on February 9, 1860, alludes 
 to one unpleasantness between them as follows: 
 "When leisure and inclination coincide, will you 
 not oblige me by a brief review of Timrod 's Poems? 
 I know, after what has occurred, he can urge no 
 possible claim upon your notice, but, nevertheless, 
 I wish you would notice him." 
 
 This unpleasant little matter would deserve obli 
 vion were it not for the fact that it is typical of the 
 kind of treatment Simms was constantly receiving 
 from men who ought to have been his friends. It 
 is gratifying, however, to know that the estrange 
 ment did not last long; and we shall see hereafter 
 that Simms was able to render great assistance to 
 Timrod in the terrible years that immediately fol 
 lowed the war. Although Hayne does not assign 
 a cause for the breach between the two writers, it 
 is easy to infer what the true cause was. Timrod 
 was critical by nature and Simms was vulnerable 
 in many places. Timrod knew that he could write 
 real poetry, while Simms could not, and it probably 
 vexed him to hear the elder man airing his often 
 crude views upon poetical subjects in his positive
 
 234 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 Johnsonian manner. Then again the contrast be 
 tween Simms's magnificent physique and his own 
 puny frame was not likely to make the rough and 
 ready favors and approbation of the veteran au 
 thor very acceptable. 
 
 Be this as it may, Timrod's was probably the 
 most finely endowed mind to be found in Carolina, 
 or indeed in the whole South, at this period. His 
 German blood and his inherited qualities had given 
 him a greater artistic endowment than any other 
 Southern writer, save Poe, had been blessed with. 
 He was able, except in the case of his sonnets, in 
 which he evidently came under Simms's influence, 
 to control himself ; was able to devote time and pa 
 tience to the polishing and perfection of his verse ; 
 and, more than all, was able to distinguish between 
 subjects that were proper and subjects that were 
 alien to his art. In these respects he was slightly, 
 but only slightly, superior to Hayne. But where 
 Hayne and the generality of Southern poets pos 
 sessed a delicate fancy, for the most part exercised 
 on subjects not far removed from the common 
 place, Timrod possessed an imagination which, if 
 not lofty and wide embracing, was within its narrow 
 range characterized by a singular intensity. He 
 has not left much work behind him, and that work 
 is marred by the effects which constant sickness 
 and poverty and the stress of war necessarily had 
 upon his genius; but he has left a few singularly 
 beautiful poems, and one at least, the ode written 
 for the occasion of the decoration of the Confed-
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 235 
 
 erate graves in Magnolia Cemetery, that approxi 
 mates perfection, the perfection of Collins, not 
 that of Lovelace. That he was dominated by Ten 
 nyson, just as Hayne was dominated by Tennyson 
 and William Morris, and Simms by Wordsworth, is 
 perfectly true ; but his poetic powers were not only 
 greater than those of his brothers, but also more 
 akin to the powers of the great model he set him 
 self. Hence I cannot but believe that a day will 
 come when his work will be more generally known 
 than it is at present. 
 
 But although Timrod sometimes resisted Simms 's 
 influence, neither he nor any other member of this 
 interesting group could wholly escape that influence 
 or fail to look up to Simms as the chief represen 
 tative of Southern literature, as the standard bearer 
 of a high cause which had experienced failure of- 
 tener than success. The more intimately they knew 
 the man, the more they loved him, and the more 
 they could overlook his pomposity when he folded 
 his cloak around him, and began to discuss the 
 topic uppermost in his mind. 
 
 Some members of "the club" preferred his idle 
 talk, which, in the words of one of them, Mr. Tup- 
 per, "was ever entertaining and frequently in 
 structive." "His estimate of prominent politicians 
 and little great men about us was singularly cor 
 rect," continues the same authority. "He had a 
 great contempt for cant and affectation; nothing 
 irritated him more than the solemn, ponderous talk 
 of a blockhead affecting the dignity and wisdom of 
 a bishop or judge."
 
 236 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 Mr. Tupper also describes how he used to sit 
 and watch Simms prepare an article for immediate 
 publication. "He would write page after page 
 without stopping a moment for reflection or revi 
 sion, and, without altering a word or reading what 
 he had written," would let it go to the printer, oc 
 casionally writing at the end of his sheets the fol 
 lowing direction to that functionary: "Carefully 
 revise; I have no time to correct your errors." On 
 one occasion Mr. Tupper and Simms were prepar 
 ing to go to a festival or ball of the volunteer fire 
 department, when the latter suddenly inquired who 
 were to be the invited guests. Mr. Tupper gave 
 him the names of the most prominent, whereupon 
 Simms called for pen and paper, and in half an 
 hour wrote about twenty stanzas of facetious po 
 etry, each stanza giving some well-known charac 
 teristic of a separate guest. These he read at the 
 proper time with such effect that he was obliged to 
 reread them before the night was over. He then 
 walked to a fireplace and burned them, resisting 
 Mr. Tupper's importunity to save them, by declar 
 ing that he would not preserve anything that re 
 flected on the infirmities of friends. 
 
 Naturally the stories told about Simms are not 
 always so pleasant as this one. Yet, while some of 
 them are calculated to raise a smile at his expense, 
 not one of them will make a discriminating hearer 
 forget the real excellence of the man. Sometimes 
 even his young admirers were tempted to make his 
 peculiarities the subject of a practical joke. For
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 237 
 
 example, Simms prided himself on his gastronomic 
 attainments, and in the person of Lieutenant Porgy 
 once allowed himself to grow eloquent over the del 
 icacy of a stew made of alligator terrapins. But 
 there were some heretics in "the club " who did not 
 believe that Simms had ever eaten an alligator ter 
 rapin, and they determined to try him on the dish 
 for which he had given so elaborate a receipt. 
 They procured one of the monsters after some de 
 lay and trouble, and, having arranged for the proper 
 making of the stew, invited Simms to supper. 
 The veteran came, and was bountifully helped to 
 his favorite dish. At the very first mouthful he 
 made a wry face, and exclaimed: "For heaven's 
 sake, boys, where did you get this rancid stuff?" 
 "That is alligator terrapin, stewed a la Porgy, Mr. 
 Simms," was the reply. "Ah," said the discom 
 fited romancer, " you must have made some mistake 
 with the receipt." 
 
 The literary inactivity which characterized 
 Simms after his return from the North in the 
 autumn of 1856 has been already described. He 
 wrote for "Russell's " and the "Mercury," and sup 
 plied Appleton's "New American Cyclopaedia," 
 with biographical sketches, but he began new ro 
 mances only to throw them aside. One of his re 
 views in "Russell's" deserves notice because it 
 shows that he could at times point out defects in 
 Southern literary work. The person who received 
 this unfavorable but just criticism was a small poet 
 named Howard H. Caldwell, who, according to
 
 238 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 Hayne, instigated in revenge a nasty attack upon 
 Simms in the columns of the New Orleans "Delta." 
 Hayne in his loyalty turned the cold shoulder to 
 Caldwell, and wrote to Simms as follows : 
 
 "It [Simms 's career as a writer] has been a fight 
 against bitter prejudice, miserable provincialism of 
 tone and sentiment, mean jealousies, and, worse 
 than all, that species of ignorance which is so in 
 vincibly blind and presumptuous. . . . And just 
 such a contest, modified in detail, but the same es 
 sentially, awaits every true literary athlete, whose 
 intellectual battlefield happens to be in any part 
 of this material, debased, provincial, narrow- 
 minded South ! God help all such combatants. 
 'T is almost enough to make one forswear his 
 country. I cannot refrain from picturing to my 
 self your fate, had you removed at any early age 
 to Massachusetts or Europe. Prosperity, praise, 
 * troops of friends,' and admirers, but not what you 
 now possess, and which must be a proud consola 
 tion, the consciousness of having been true to the 
 Penates, of having illustrated, as none other has, 
 the genius loci, under disadvantages which would 
 have sunk a weaker mind and corrupted a less 
 manly and heroic heart." (January 14, 1859.) 
 
 Some months previously (October 30, 1858), 
 Simms, while jotting down the personal memoranda 
 which were cited in the first chapter of this book, 
 commented as follows on his father's advice that he 
 should remain in Mississippi : 
 
 "Thirty odd years have passed, and I can now
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 239 
 
 mournfully say the old man was right. All that I 
 have [done] has been poured to waste in Charleston, 
 which has never smiled on any of my labors, which 
 has steadily ignored my claims, which has dispar 
 aged me to the last, has been the last place to give 
 me its adhesion, to which I owe no favor, having 
 never received an office, or a compliment, or a dol 
 lar at her hands ; and, with the exception of some 
 dozen of her citizens, who have been kind to me, 
 and some scores of her young men, who have hon 
 ored me with a loving sympathy and something 
 like reverence, which has always treated me rather 
 as a public enemy, to be sneered at, than as a du 
 tiful son doing her honor. And I, too, know it 
 as a place of tombs. I have buried six dear chil 
 dren within its soil ! Great God ! what is the sort 
 of slavery which brings me hither! " 
 
 It was not a morbid temper alone that inspired 
 these gloomy words. Simms had just been through 
 trials that would have unnerved any man. The 
 year 1858 had been ushered in by the death of his 
 father-in-law, Mr. Nash Roach (February 28), and 
 more untimely deaths had followed. Mr. Roach 
 had reached the age of sixty-six, and on his death 
 Woodlands had passed to Simms and his wife for 
 their lives, and on their deaths to their eldest son, 
 William Gilmore. But Woodlands, which had 
 been especially bright to Simms ever since the 
 birth of his second son, Sydney Roach, in Aug 
 ust, 1852, and of his third son, Beverley Hammond, 
 in August, 1854, was to be bright no longer. The
 
 240 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 family had removed as usual to Charleston, and 
 Simms had gone North for a short trip, when the 
 yellow fever made its appearance in the city. "A 
 terrible prescience," as he afterwards styled it, 
 hurried the father home. He arrived only in time 
 to find his two favorite sons stricken with the dis 
 ease. All efforts of father, mother, and devoted 
 friends like William Porcher Miles, who gave him 
 self up to nursing them, failed to save them, and 
 they died on the same day, September 22, 1858. 
 
 The loss of these boys was probably the greatest 
 blow that Simms had ever had. Children of his 
 maturer years, they had entered like sunshine into 
 his clouded and chequered life. One of them had 
 combined the names of two dear friends (Tucker 
 and Major Hammond), and both had seemed up to 
 this time the embodiment of health and spirits. 
 He had loved all his children, and, besides those 
 mentioned in the previous chapter, he had had two 
 born to him within the past two years; his eldest 
 daughter, too, had just married, or was about to 
 marry, her cousin, Mr. Edward Roach, and he 
 might look forward to having grandchildren at his 
 knees ; but he could not be comforted, and in poems 
 and letters he poured forth the bitterness of his 
 grief. 
 
 In such a state of mind it was natural for him 
 to turn for relief to his proper and congenial occu 
 pation of writing romances. He took up the un 
 finished "Cassique of Kiawah," and by the spring 
 of 1859 had it ready for the printers. Except for
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 241 
 
 the touching prefatory sonnet to Miles, no traces 
 are to be found in it of the effects of his great sor 
 row upon his mind and heart. There is hardly a 
 sign of flagging powers, although he has been writ 
 ing romances for twenty-seven years. Sometimes, 
 it is true, he proses more than is usual with him; 
 but when he wakes up from his doze and pushes 
 off on the trail of his plot, he runs like an old 
 hound who is anxious to show that he is still wor 
 thy to be called the leader of the pack. In short, 
 although the revolutionary romances have at times 
 a greater charm for the reader who loves the wild, 
 free life of swamp and forest, "The Cassique of 
 Kiawah " maintains an average standard of excel 
 lence which makes one hesitate before determining 
 that it is inferior to any of Simms's romances. 
 
 Like "The Yemassee " it is a colonial story, but 
 of a still earlier period 1684. Unlike "The 
 Yemassee " it does not confine itself to the woods, 
 or make its Indian characters prominent ; but gives 
 an admirable description of the infant Charlestown 
 and of life on a gallant privateer, the Happy-go- 
 Lucky, terrible to Spanish galleons and dear to 
 colonial dames who purchase its contraband silks 
 and laces. Its author is nowhere out of his ele 
 ment, and does not, as in so many of his other 
 works, allow his historical knowledge to impede 
 his progress. If his descriptions of events at sea 
 display no special familiarity with seamanship, 
 they are nevertheless spirited and full of action, 
 not mere colorless imitations of Cooper. And if
 
 242 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 the fact that a romance of six hundred pages does 
 not seem tedious to a reader who has already gone 
 through twenty odd romances by the same author, 
 be a sign of success, then Simms certainly suc 
 ceeded in "The Cassique of Kiawah." 
 
 This last of Simms's worthy romances had fallen 
 upon bad times; for the country was too much 
 stirred up over the great questions of slavery and 
 secession to pay much attention to literature. 
 Nevertheless many who read it expressed their ad 
 miration in the warmest terms. Cooke and Hayne 
 were especially pleased, and Professor W. J. Riv 
 ers, perhaps the best informed man in Carolina on 
 matters of local history, wrote to bear his testimony 
 to the accuracy with which Simms had delineated 
 the historical period in which he had set his ro 
 mance. Stately Charleston bought a few more 
 copies than usual ; and even the " North American 
 Review " made some amends for its former unpleas 
 antness by giving a favorable notice of the book. 
 Thus encouraged, the veteran shook off his troubles 
 and his ill health sufficiently to revise and enlarge 
 his "History of South Carolina." Scarcely had 
 he finished this task, before his nerves were again 
 shattered by the severe illness of his baby daughter, 
 Harriet Middleton, whose beauty had been the 
 pride of the family. She was Miles's god-daugh 
 ter, and after the crisis was over Simms wrote the 
 former, then member of Congress from Charleston, 
 a pitiful account of the anguish that had racked 
 him for weeks past. After her recovery he was
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 243 
 
 cheered by a visit from his old friend Lawson, 
 and perhaps by an invitation, got for him by Miles 
 and others of his friends in Congress, to deliver the 
 oration at the unveiling of Clark Mills 's equestrian 
 statue of Washington. It was undoubtedly a plea 
 sure to be requested to undertake such a task ; but 
 Simms wrote back dolefully that he was sick, de 
 spondent, poor, and out at the edges generally. So 
 he felt obliged to decline, and the Hon. Mr. Bocock, 
 of Virginia, was finally chosen to fill his place. 
 His despondency was further increased by the ac 
 cidental burning of his house in Charleston early 
 in May, 1860. Here many of the pleasantest 
 months of his life had been spent with Hayne and 
 other friends, and here he had lost his two boys. 
 "You will feel a little yourself," he wrote Miles, 
 "for a wigwam, in which you have seen us so bit 
 terly tried." Other letters followed, telling his 
 friend of plantation losses, of the illness of another 
 child, of the rascalities of politicians, and of the 
 evil of things in general ; but he was not enough, 
 of a pessimist to avoid an expression of paternal 
 pride when his namesake Gilmore stood "Num 
 ber One " at the Arsenal Academy of Columbia. 
 
 Meanwhile his revised "History of South Caro 
 lina" had been published, and he went to New 
 York in August, 1860, to superintend the printing 
 of his last ante-bellum book, his enlarged "Arey- 
 tos, or Songs of the South." There was, of course, 
 no need for the volume, youthful love songs are 
 hardly the kind of poetry with which to usher in a
 
 244 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 revolution, but Simms took an almost feverish 
 delight in publishing, and if he ever needed plea 
 sure, he needed it in this trying year of 1860. To 
 do him justice it must be said that he expected no 
 praise for his poems, but he did expect great things 
 of his history, and he was much disappointed when 
 he found that scarcely a newspaper in South Car 
 olina took any notice of it. The "North Amer 
 ican Re view "gave him another compliment; but 
 the South Carolinians were too busy applauding 
 violent secessionist speeches to pay any attention to 
 their own history, even though Simms had written 
 his book with the avowed purpose of furnishing the 
 young men of the State with an ample stock of ar 
 guments with which to defend the cause of states- 
 rights. He laid great stress upon this last point in 
 his letters to Congressman Miles; but, although 
 he is certainly more outspoken about nullification 
 than he was in his first edition, it is hard to dis 
 cover why he should have thought that he had pre 
 pared a manual for a statesman, when he had only 
 written a good school history or an interesting 
 sketch for a general reader. It is true that, as 
 President C. K. Adams of Cornell has said, "it 
 shows an intense local patriotism," but South Car 
 olina politicians hardly needed lessons in that re 
 gard in the year 1860. Still, as the above quoted 
 authority says, the book "has several distinctive 
 merits above all other histories of South Carolina. 
 It covers the whole period down to our civil war. 
 It has all the beauties of the author's character-
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 245 
 
 istic style. . . . From beginning to end the nar 
 ration is spirited and graphic, but the sketch is 
 too brief for details even on the most important 
 points." This is high praise, and it is in the 
 main well deserved. One can only wish that 
 Simms could have seen it just after he had written 
 one of his lugubrious letters to Miles on the sub 
 ject of his people's neglect of his patriotic book. 
 For, however sectional it may seem nowadays, 
 Simms certainly made it patriotic in his sense of 
 the term. Yet it was not the first time his efforts 
 for South Carolina had been slighted by the people 
 for whom they were made, and after a short stay in 
 New York, during which he advised his friends, 
 like Lawspn, to unload their Southern securities as 
 speedily as possible, he returned to Woodlands 
 to await, with what patience he could muster, the 
 breaking out of the war he had long foretold. 
 
 But as we began with nightmares we may as well 
 end with them, even though this chapter has al 
 ready stretched out to an unconscionable length; 
 and as it began with extracts from Simms's corre 
 spondence with Beverley Tucker, it may close with 
 similar extracts from his correspondence with his 
 young friend Miles. Before these interesting let 
 ters are examined, however, it will be well to refer 
 briefly to a ridiculous action on the part of one of 
 those useless and demoralizing Southern conven 
 tions which were stirring up strife in the decade 
 preceding the war. 
 
 The convention held in December, 1856, at Sa-
 
 246 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 vannah appointed a committee to prepare a "series 
 of books in every department of study, from the 
 earliest primer to the highest grade of literature 
 and science." The books were to be free, of course, 
 from abolitionist teachings, and were to show the 
 world the beauties of slavery and the indefeasibil- 
 ity of states-rights. The committee appointed to 
 prepare this literature and there are some good 
 people in the South to-day who dream of manufac 
 turing a similar product contained some excellent 
 men like Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, and Professor 
 Bledsoe, but, strangely enough, the only represen 
 tative man of letters the South could boast of was 
 omitted. This remarkable action was noticed in a 
 sarcastic article in "Putnam's Magazine " for Feb 
 ruary, 1857, the writer inquiring why the name of 
 William Gilmore Simms, LL. D., had been so un 
 ceremoniously passed over. He went on to say: 
 "In respect, however, of constructive talent and 
 affluence of product, Mr. Simms takes precedence 
 of any other of our distinctive Southern authors. 
 Mr. Wirt and Mr. Legare, who are usually quoted 
 as the Pillars of Hercules of our Southern litera 
 ture [ex pede NON Herculeni], were both polished, 
 and graceful, and accomplished essayists ; but they 
 displayed none of the verve or continuity of 
 Simms." 
 
 It is a little amusing to recall at this point the 
 notion Simms had latterly taken up that the North 
 ern press was endeavoring to undermine his rep 
 utation. His sturdiest supporters and the major-
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 247 
 
 ity of his readers had always been at the North, 1 
 and it was not until he began to meddle in politics 
 that he ever got any severer criticism there than a 
 man of his careless literary habits might have ex 
 pected. If it had not been for the encouragement 
 which the North gave to "Atalantis," "Martin 
 Faber," "Guy Rivers," and "The Yemassee," he 
 might have gone on publishing "Early Lays," and 
 other such volumes, to the end of time without any 
 body's being the wiser except a few Southern bibli 
 ophiles. If he had not visited the North summer 
 after summer, mingling with her literary men, his 
 work would have been far more provincial, if in 
 deed he had found sufficient incitement to keep 
 working at all. The neglect he had had to com 
 plain of had come chiefly from the South, for rea 
 sons which have already been given at length. 
 This recent ignoring of his claims by the Southern 
 convention, while really an unintended compliment, 
 was but of a piece with the constant slights he had 
 received from his own people for thirty odd years. 
 It was but feeble amends for this treatment that 
 he was afterwards made a member of the Southern 
 Board of Education appointed by the Knoxville 
 Convention, or that he was named by the governor 
 as a delegate from South Carolina to the Southern 
 Commercial Convention which met at Montgomery, 
 Alabama, in May, 1858. 2 
 
 1 Redfield stated this to General J. G. Wilson, with regard to 
 the revised edition. 
 
 2 This action of the Savannah Convention has been twisted into
 
 248 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 In his correspondence with Tucker, Simms had 
 deferred to the former's age, and had allowed him 
 to lead the discussions they kept up on politics, 
 but in the case of his young friend Miles he was 
 disposed to be leader himself, and to play the part 
 of adviser. It is somewhat amusing in view of his 
 former prophecies to find him writing from Wood 
 lands, February 3, 1859 : 
 
 "Don't touch Cuba. . She is the bait which the 
 Democratic party holds out to the South. Beware 
 how you enter this field. The Democratic party 
 has but one chance left for life, that of involving 
 us in foreign war. It is a mere delusion to sup 
 pose that our chances of getting Cuba are less, if 
 separate, than as a whole. If separate,, we control 
 the whole commerce, all the shipping of the 
 North I It is better to be separate before we take 
 Cuba. Take it now, and we have a burning 
 brand we shall never extinguish. It is the only 
 process for bolstering up the Democratic party, 
 and while that party lives the South can never be 
 secure. But I forget, my dear Miles, I am too 
 spasmodic now for a politician. I have hurts and 
 cares, which keep me from thought. Make the 
 most you can of this scribble, for there is truth in 
 it. I see a thousand miles ahead in this matter. 
 God bless you. Yours ever, SIMMS." 
 
 a joke which has come more than once to my ears. "Resolved," 
 so the Convention is reported as voting, ' ' That there be a South 
 ern literature. Resolved, That William Gilmore Simms, LL. D., 
 be requested to write this literature." This humorous perversion 
 of an action silly enough to need no perversion is due to the arti 
 cle in Putnam's quoted above.
 
 DEEAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 249 
 
 Writing from "Woodlands, May 21, he says: 
 " My own opinion is that the people of all the South 
 are monstrously ahead of all their politicians, as 
 the latter will be made to see and feel. It is only 
 the trading politicians that care about a president 
 at all. The people of the South want their rights, 
 not office. Those who want office scarcely can un 
 derstand them [the people]. Mark me, the politi 
 cian now, who would maintain himself long, must 
 endeavor to get ahead of the people, not to arrest 
 their momentum, but to direct it in the very path 
 they are pursuing. . . . We in the South at this 
 juncture can condense all our political creed into 
 one brief formula: 'We know but the South, and 
 the South in danger ! ' And no more tampering 
 with the enemy ; no more campaigns bolstering up 
 a driveling [?] party to the ruin of the South. 
 Write me. I need it." 
 
 At the end of the same year, December 28, 
 writing of ex -governor, then senator, Hammond, he 
 says: "He is friendly to Buchanan and will sup 
 port him, but only so long as Buchanan shall prove 
 superior to the stupid ambition of trying to win 
 over the Northern democracy at the sacrifice of 
 everything. In brief, Hammond will support the 
 Democratic party only while it is tributary to the 
 interests of the South." In the same letter he 
 gives Miles this laconic advice: "Let all your 
 game lie in the constant recognition and assertion 
 of a Southern nationality." On February 8, 
 1860, he gives him better advice when he tells him
 
 250 WILLIAM G1LMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 not to let the Southern members "mouth and splut 
 ter," a bit of counsel which should have been 
 given to them years before, as the pages of the 
 "Congressional Globe" abundantly prove. Writ 
 ing March 21, of a speech recently delivered by 
 Senator Hunter, he remarks that it is "a true, 
 timid, compromising one, though well written. It 
 will not do for the time. We want thunderbolts, 
 not gossamer, for the combat. This of course is 
 all inter nos" 
 
 During the summer of 1860 he is mainly occu 
 pied in speculating about the presidential election 
 of the coming autumn. 1 He thinks Breckinridge's 
 chances good, declaring that Douglas will not get 
 the vote of a single Southern State. But after all 
 he does not attach as much importance to the elec 
 tion as he does to the fact that the cotton States 
 have been brought "to act together, independently, 
 irrespectively of the North," that the conflict has 
 been brought to the only issue that could possibly 
 come, "a purely sectional issue," from which only 
 orte result can arise, a struggle for independence on 
 the part of the South. Apropos of this consumma 
 tion he writes, July 15: "I had a long and ear 
 nest talk with Jamison, begging him to see Bhett 
 and urge strenuously upon him what I should say. 
 I told him that, while I was anxious, like himself, 
 for the formation of a Southern confederacy, I saw 
 clearly that such a declaration would drive our 
 
 1 He approved of the breaking up of the Charleston Conven 
 tion, but did not think that the Southern leaders went far enough,
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 251 
 
 people from us, at this time the fruit is not ripe, 
 but that we should really retard the final day 
 of deliverance." He then goes on to point out how 
 hard it is to make politicians and common people 
 conduct a campaign on abstract principles, and 
 concludes that even if the "Black Kepublicans" 
 win this time it will be better for the South. For 
 the successful party will go ahead in its madness 
 until at the South both politicians and people will 
 feel that there is no bearing their insolence any 
 longer, and all will move toward the formation of 
 a "Southern confederacy." Therefore "it is to be 
 wished that Mr. Rhett could take no active part in 
 the canvass," and the "Mercury" will do well "to 
 forbear as much as possible and to expend its thun 
 der rather upon Lincoln than Douglas." In this 
 way Lincoln may be defeated, and if not, the Re 
 publican party will become still more odious, and 
 then will come the separation. 
 
 There is a good deal of shrewd political sense 
 mixed up with these nightmares, as the reader has 
 doubtless perceived. Simms evidently did not see 
 clearly how far the people of the South had been 
 led to dread the success of the Republicans, but 
 he was quick enough to perceive that in the success 
 of that party he and his friends must base their 
 hopes for the speedy separation of the sections. 
 Nor was he at all inclined to mince matters, as some 
 honest persons were then and have been since, by 
 proclaiming that the South was merely engaging 
 in a struggle for her constitutional rights. He saw
 
 252 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 plainly enough that people do not fight for abstract 
 principles, and that if constitutional questions came 
 into play at all, it would only be in a secondary 
 sense. He boldly based his desire for separation 
 on the hatred existing between the sections and on 
 the menace which the preponderance of power on 
 the part of the North gave to the South' s peculiar 
 institution. In other words, he saw that the com 
 ing war would be one for the preservation of slav 
 ery, however much men might consciously or un 
 consciously disguise the fact. He had echoed 
 Tucker's words: "If we will not have slaves, we 
 must be slaves," and in doing so he showed him 
 self to be a clearer thinker than the conscientious 
 but befogged theorists around him, who were for 
 ever speaking and writing as if the constitutional 
 theories which were held on account of slavery 
 were more potent over men's minds than the de 
 stroying institution itself. We may regret that 
 such a clear-headed man should have been so de 
 luded in respect to the true nature of the cause for 
 which he was struggling, but it is as well to re 
 member that he did not claim to be fighting for one 
 thing when he was really fighting for another. 
 
 And so when Lincoln was elected and the call 
 came for a convention of his State, Simms was not 
 found napping. He wrote to Miles that he hoped 
 they would carry the South "through what the 
 Germans call the Landsturm." "It will be a pop 
 ular rush," he added, "as I have always predicted, 
 as soon as the national party should have perished ;
 
 DREAMS AND POLITICAL NIGHTMARES. 253 
 
 the momentum given to the people being such as no 
 popular leader or politician would venture to head, 
 or, heading, 1 which would be sure to run over him." 
 Then he goes on to point out that the descend 
 ants of Revolutionary heroes should be put forward 
 to engage the popular sympathy, and that a proper 
 man should be found for the governorship, which 
 " will be for a time at least the presidency of a new 
 republic." He proposes a bill of rights for the con 
 vention to draw up, and wishes Miles to consider 
 whether in the new confederacy the States should 
 not have equal representation in the lower house as 
 well as in the upper, the great principle of safety 
 being the protection of minorities or feeble States. 
 Not content with these suggestions, he sends some 
 patriotic poems for insertion in the "Mercury." 
 
 Nor does he forget to keep his Northern friends 
 like Mr. Bockie, of Brooklyn, informed on the state 
 of affairs at the South. On November 20, he 
 writes to him from Woodlands: "Never was a 
 people so thoroughly aroused and resolute before. 
 . . . South Carolina will secede first, Alabama 
 and Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, in order next, 
 and before the 1st of February, all these States will 
 be out of the Confederacy. 2 South Carolina will 
 be out before Christmas. Her legislature was 
 unanimous, and every member of the convention 
 
 1 Two commas have been inserted to make the meaning plainer, 
 but the construction of the sentence is hopelessly bad. 
 
 2 That is, the Union, -which -was a Confederacy according to 
 Sinims.
 
 254 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 nominated is for secession unreservedly. South 
 Carolina alone can bring 60,000 men into the field, 
 sixty Palmetto regiments; and we have already 
 50,000 volunteers from other States, should any 
 attempt be made at coercion. Such an attempt 
 will help us and force all the other Southern States 
 to take their places by our side. . . . The Union 
 had survived its uses, had got to be a mere shop [ ?] 
 of faction, fraud, and peculation, was no longer a 
 guardian of the feeble, was a bold, impudent ag 
 gressor upon the rights of others, an usurper, wax 
 ing fat and kicking in its lustihood, and needed to 
 be taken down and driven to short commons." 1 
 
 In -a word, he was thoroughly aroused. Ill 
 health and lassitude seemed to have left him. He 
 waited impatiently for the passage of the "Ordi 
 nance of Secession," and soon after singing his 
 "Nunc Dimittis " wrote Miles a brief undated epis 
 tle which concluded as follows : " I have been mak 
 ing stump speeches. Everybody right in this re 
 gion. Minute men in arms. Go to the convention 
 [at Montgomery] if you can. Of course, Congress 
 is nothing to you now. Identify yourself with the 
 movement. But do not fatigue yourself." 2 
 
 1 Simms, of course, had his constitutional arguments, but sla 
 very was the chief question with him. Most Southerners then 
 believed, as Dr. Gildersleeve has since expressed it (Atlantic 
 Monthly, January, 1892, p. 87), that they were fighting for " the 
 cause of civil liberty, and not the cause of human slavery," 
 forgetting that it was human slavery which largely determined 
 the nature of a Southerner's ideas of civil liberty. 
 
 2 Alluding to Miles's recent illness.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE WAR. 
 
 "I AM here, like a bear with a sore head, and 
 chained to the stake," wrote Simms to Miles on 
 the last day of 1860. "I chafe, and roar, and rage, 
 but can do nothing. Do not be rash, but do not 
 let the old city forget her prestige. Charleston is 
 worth all New England." 
 
 But if he could not be up in arms, he could do 
 more than roar and curse New England. He could 
 write letters by the dozen to Jamison and Miles, 
 pointing out mistakes that had been made by those 
 in authority, making military suggestions of all 
 sorts, and showing himself dowered with a large 
 supply of common sense and of genius for affairs, as 
 well as with the poet's "hate of hate, the scorn of 
 scorn, the love of love." Only one of these letters 
 can be given here, but all should some day be pub 
 lished. 
 
 Sunday l Night, 12P.M. 
 
 I am sleepless, my dear Miles, and must write. 
 If you should be sleepless also, it is not improbable 
 but that my letters will help you to a soporific con- 
 
 1 Probably the Sunday that followed the firing on the Star of 
 the West, t. e. January 13, 1861.
 
 256 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 dition. It seems to me that you will have a little 
 respite. The opening fire upon the Star of the 
 West changes materially the aspect of things to the 
 Federal government, and they will hardly think to 
 send supplies to Sumter except under cover of 
 armed vessels, which is the inauguration of open 
 war upon the State, which the President and cabinet 
 will hardly attempt unless under authority of Con 
 gress. Congress alone, I believe, has the power 
 to declare war. There is no telling, however, what 
 may be done when the power is under the hands of 
 a weak administration, counseled and governed, in 
 fact, by a person whose whole training has en 
 dowed [him] with military ideas as paramount to 
 all. l We must, of course, prepare for two dangers, 
 treachery and assault. But it strikes me that the 
 unexpected fire of Fort Morris will compel a 
 pause in the Federal councils, for the better matur 
 ing of plans, and some respite for preparation will 
 be allowed you. Not an hour should be lost in 
 preparation. To have numerous guns, to bear 
 equally upon an assailing squadron and Fort Sum 
 ter, seems to be the necessity. Looking at the map, 
 I note that Mount Pleasant is distant from Fort 
 Sumter some two miles, while I estimate Moultrie 
 to be some one and a quarter. A battery at 
 Mount Pleasant, cutting the western angle of Sulli 
 van's Island, seems to be in direct range with Sum- 
 
 1 It seems plain that Simms here alludes to General Winfield 
 Scott. Cass had had a military training, but he had resigned 
 from the Cabinet when the above was written-
 
 THE WAR. 257 
 
 ter, and if within reach of heavy cannon, then a 
 battery of earth at this point, with half a dozen 
 thirty-two pounders, might operate successfully 
 against it, at all events compel a very useful diver 
 sion of its fires. So I find that on the sandhills 
 below Fort Johnson, and on the sandhills at the 
 extreme Western verge of Fort Morris, batteries of 
 say three heavy cannon each might face Fort Sum- 
 ter, framed of logs faced with iron and filled in 
 with sand, which could contribute largely to its 
 distraction, if not its injury. On these sandhills, 
 also, you possess an advantage in their elevation, 
 which will tend to reduce the superiority of Sumter 
 in height. Two or three batteries along these hills 
 and at these points, mere bastions, having two or 
 three guns each of heavy calibre, could be thrown 
 up very suddenly, assuming, as I do, that you can 
 command, from the popular patriotism, any amount 
 of slave labor. I would have them so planted as 
 not to face the portholes of Sumter, yet be able to 
 take them at an angle. Shot entering a porthole 
 obliquely would be more mischievous, perhaps, 
 than if direct, since the zigzag course they would 
 pursue would be likely to kill every man on one side 
 or other of the guns, besides abrading the embra 
 sure very seriously. In reference to Wappoo Cut, 
 let me mention that, as the obvious entrance to that 
 cut is by the Stono, there is an old fort, once 
 thought a pretty strong one, at the mouth of the 
 Stono, on Cole's Island. This might be manned 
 by volunteers from the precinct, officered by some
 
 258 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 good military man. It covers Bird Key [?] and 
 is very well placed, though still, I think, it would 
 be good policy to stop up Wappoo Cut, or keep an 
 armed schooner in Ashley River, at the mouth of 
 it. I am writing, you perceive, without the slight 
 est knowledge of what has been done; and it is 
 quite probable that all my suggestions have been 
 anticipated. If, however, you fancy there is any 
 thing in them, communicate with Jamison and any 
 military friends on whose judgment you rely. 
 Ranging timbers properly mortised might be pre 
 pared by the mechanics of the city, and the iron 
 bars laid on, if desired, before shipment to the de 
 sired points. It is my impression that old Fort 
 Johnson ranges Moultrie in the same line with 
 Sumter. If so, it is a question how far it would 
 be proper to use the former place with heavy can 
 non which might range across the strait. You 
 should employ all the heavy cannon you can. 
 Jamison told me that you had an abundance. 
 Unless Fort Morris has numerous pieces, she could 
 hardly play any efficient game with many assailing 
 vessels. I do not know where Fort Morris is 
 placed, but suppose it to be fronting equally the 
 Ship and the Twelve-feet channel. In that event, 
 unless the sandhills interpose, it is under the range 
 of Fort Sumter, provided the distance be within 
 three miles, as I suppose it to be. I should have 
 said four, but for the threat of Anderson to fire 
 on Fort Morris. A battery between Fort Morris 
 and the Lighthouse, on the edge of the sandhills,
 
 THE WAR. 259 
 
 might rake the Ship Channel with a plunging fire, 
 yet I should think be out of range and even sight 
 of Fort Sumter. I think I said, in a previous 
 letter, that in sighting the guns for long distances 
 telescopes should be used ; of course, I meant only 
 the ordinary ship spyglasses, of which a sufficient 
 number for each battery could be obtained in the 
 city. With another battery to second Fort Mor 
 ris, each of twelve guns at least, and heavy ones, 
 you could give a telling account of all entering 
 vessels. They might all be sunk with good gun 
 nery. But two shot only taking effect out of 
 eighteen fired, would seem to show that the gun 
 nery was not sufficiently practiced. I write only 
 from report. To-night, I learn that (on dif) 
 there has been a mutiny in Fort Sumter, and that 
 Anderson has had to shoot one of his men, and put 
 ten more in irons ; and that this was the reason why 
 he did not fire on Forts Morris and Moultrie. By 
 the "Mercury " it is said that some negotiations are 
 on foot which will prevent bloodshed. The infer 
 ence is that Fort Sumter will be given up. This is 
 hardly probable. I suspect treachery. We should 
 suspect nothing else. Anderson wishes communi 
 cation with the city. If opportunity is allowed 
 him to see what we are doing, or to hear of it, or if 
 he is allowed to corrupt mercenaries, we shall have 
 worse mischief. We must not be too confiding, 
 too easy of faith, too courteous, even to an enemy, 
 who, if he had the right feeling, would at once 
 resign his command and throw up his position on
 
 260 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 the distinct ground of his Southern birth and asso 
 ciations. He should be kept corked up closely, 
 until we are quite ready to draw him off. If he 
 still keep his position, and we are to have an at 
 tempt by the war steamers, Fort Sumter must and 
 will take part in it ; the vital point is how to neu 
 tralize his action in the engagement. I see but the 
 one suggested, to keep as many batteries at work 
 on him, breaching and otherwise, and a cloud of 
 vessels and men ready for scaling, as will effectively 
 divert his regards from those forts which are de 
 signed for the defense of the harbor. And unless 
 Fort Morris be made strong in guns, I see that 
 vessels of heavy draft in deep water may shell it 
 ad libitum, while the smaller craft passes in. I am 
 very doubtful whether a fort on the east end of 
 Sullivan's can do more than cover the Maffit and 
 Rattlesnake channels, if these. It can hardly do 
 much mischief to vessels entering the Ship Channel. 
 Something will depend upon the calibre of its guns. 
 Do, if you can spare a half hour, write me, in char 
 ity, how we stand, and with what degree of prep 
 aration, and believe me 
 
 W. GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 To this long letter Simms added a by no means 
 short postscript, in which he detailed a scheme for 
 approaching Fort Sumter by rafts in case an esca 
 lade should be attempted, a proceeding which he 
 deprecated upon the whole. The two head rafts 
 were to be covered with thick plank and tin, and
 
 THE WAR. 261 
 
 to be painted dark. They would thus be protected 
 from hand grenades, and at low water the whole 
 chain of rafts would form an almost solid bridge. 
 But the main point was to wear the garrison out. 
 "So long as we can effect this," he concludes, 
 "and keep them in a state of siege, there is no 
 discredit to the State. We should do nothing 
 rashly now, to the peril of our brave young men, 
 which we can possibly avoid. But you will think 
 me interminable. Once more, good-night." * 
 
 1 Any elaborate comments upon this letter, or upon the similar 
 ones that succeeded it, would be out of place on the part of a 
 writer who can make no claim to special knowledge of military 
 matters. Yet it would be unfair to Simms not to point out how 
 far he seems to have anticipated in his correspondence the plan 
 of operations subsequently pursued by the State and Confederate 
 authorities in reference to the defenses of Charleston harbor. 
 The floating battery which operated against Sumter, and which 
 Beauregard commended to the Confederate Secretary of War 
 (The War of the Rebellion, etc., Series I. vol. i. p. 316), was one 
 of Simms's earliest suggestions. The battery proposed at Fort 
 Johnson was erected, and a second added ; a ten-inch mortar was 
 also used at Mount Pleasant. The iron-clad battery at Cum- 
 mings Point, on the extremity of Morris Island, looking toward 
 Sumter, which was the chief subject of many of his letters, was 
 erected almost entirely in accordance with bis plans, as is evident 
 from a comparison of his letters with those which Major Ander 
 son was sending at the time to the authorities at Washington. 
 This battery worked well, but the credit of its conception has 
 been wrongly assigned. The Charleston Year Book for 1883 (p. 
 549) states that " the first thought of the modern iron armor now 
 in use originated in Charleston, with the late Col. C. H. Stevens, 
 Twenty-fourth South Carolina Volunteers, who, as a private citi 
 zen, in January, 1861, began the erection of an iron-armored bat 
 tery of two guns, on Morris Island, built with heavy yellow pine 
 timber of great solidity, at an angle of 40, and faced with bars qf
 
 262 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 On February 20, besides his remarks on a copy 
 right law, a subject which had been discussed by 
 him in the "Southern Literary Messenger " several 
 years before, he referred as follows to the ques 
 tion of restricting the slave-trade : " We ought to 
 frame no organic law touching the slave-trade. 
 We may express a sentiment, if you please; but 
 no law. Either negro slavery is a beneficent, mer 
 ciful, God-chartered institution, or it is not. If 
 beneficent, why limit it ? Is it better for the negro 
 to be a barbarian and savage in his own country, 
 than to work out his deliverance [sic] in this ? If 
 better, why be at the pains to cast censure on the 
 morale of the institution ? Regulate the trade, but 
 do not abolish." 
 
 In the same letter he asks why the three-fifths 
 rule in regard to the representation of slaves should 
 be adopted, "a rule forced upon us by a people 
 about to abandon slavery, and, in surrendering to 
 
 railroad iron." The attempt to find in this experiment the germ 
 of the modern iron-clad is, of course, idle, as armor-plated vessels 
 were constructed by the French in the Crimean War. It would 
 seem to be equally erroneous to assign the conception of the idea 
 of the iron-clad battery to Colonel Stevens. The battery was not 
 begun until the last days of January, and it was on February 5 
 that Major Anderson discovered that it was being covered with 
 railway bars. But at least a month before, Simms had detailed 
 the whole plan of such a battery to Jamison, then acting as Secre 
 tary of War to the State of South Carolina. Jamison spoke of 
 the plan to military men, and perhaps Colonel Stevens deserves the 
 credit of having first determined to act upon it. The subject can 
 not be pursued, but it is at least apparent that Simms's long let 
 ters were not without influence, and that he was no mere dabbler 
 in matters outside his sphere.
 
 THE WAS. 263 
 
 which, we gave them the power to conquer us," 
 except to conciliate border States like Maryland 
 and Missouri, which will soon hold the relation 
 toward the cotton States, if the latter induce them 
 to enter the new confederacy, which the North 
 formerly held towards the South. He thinks the 
 border States will only weaken the new govern 
 ment, that they had better form a middle confed 
 eracy, which they must do if they do not join the 
 cotton States. "Count the votes for yourself," 
 he concludes, "and see where, in a few years, 
 the cotton States would be with such an arrange 
 ment. On one hand, Virginia, Maryland, Ken 
 tucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Missouri, 
 versus South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama 
 [Mississippi], Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. 
 Verb. sap. I am sleepy. It is two o'clock in the 
 morning." 
 
 He must have been very sleepy if he could have 
 gone to bed without reflecting what a commentary 
 his own predictions were upon his beloved doctrine 
 of secession. Why three groups of States, rather 
 than four, fire, or any number? Why not single 
 cotton States after a while, rather than a group of 
 them? And why, if Cotton was king and slavery 
 a divinely appointed institution, should eight States 
 fail to manage six ? But he evidently did not think 
 the matter out, for two days later he wrote to em 
 phasize his views, declaring : " If we move steadily 
 forward, they [the border States] cannot help them 
 selves, and must come into our fold and on our
 
 264 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 own terms. We should make no organic law, and 
 pass no provision under it, having their case in 
 contemplation at all. I would rather have a com 
 pact empire than a very extensive one, and our 
 future secret of safety and success must depend 
 wholly upon the homogeneity of or.r society and in 
 stitutions. Were the territory occupied by the 
 border States an inland sea, a waste of waters, it 
 would please me better." Had this last wish been 
 realized, he would not have had his present biogra 
 pher pointing out that in the above sentences there 
 is no mention of a union of States holding certain 
 views of the Constitution, but that there is a pretty 
 plain mention of States forming a union to perpetu 
 ate slavery. But to continue our extracts. Why, 
 he asks, should we "conciliate States into our alli 
 ance whom we shall have to support just as we have 
 supported [sic] New England-? " Still they may 
 be of use after all in making "an imposing front 
 which might discourage the hostility of the North." 
 And yet he fears that the cotton States will in the 
 future be much more troubled with the question, 
 "Who shall we keep out?" rather than with the 
 question, "How many will come in?" For "in 
 process of time all Mexico is destined to be civi 
 lized [sic] through the medium of negro slavery." 
 He further fears that it will be difficult to keep 
 New Jersey and the other Middle States out of his 
 new confederacy, and he prophesies that in three 
 years Calif ornia will " set up for herself." Let us, 
 then, "not bother our heads to please England and
 
 THE WAR. 265 
 
 the North on the score of negro slavery and the 
 slave-trade. They have already voted us barba 
 rians. But we have them in our power." It seems 
 a little like the irony of fate that this letter should 
 have been written on Washington's birthday. 
 
 In his next letters he urges for low taxes on im 
 ports, describes how he is adapting the sword bay 
 onet to the old musket, and refers as follows to 
 his battery: "I find that Jamison has adopted my 
 suggestion of using ranging timbers with facings of 
 railroad iron for batteries; but I am not satisfied 
 with the shape of the battery, nor with the man 
 ner in which the iron is laid on. ... It presents 
 too long a plane surface to a plunging fire. Be 
 sides, the rails are not spiked down. I counseled 
 that they should be spiked, but loosely, so as to al 
 low some working of the rail under the shock of 
 shot or shell." And so he went on, giving minute 
 details, illustrating his points by diagrams, and 
 showing at every word how all his faculties were 
 aroused for the defense of the cause he had labored 
 for so long. On April 17, he wrote again about his 
 batteries, concluding with these pathetic words: 
 "To-day, my dear Miles, I am fifty -five! But my 
 gray beard is sixty -five. I have grown very old in 
 two years." 
 
 He had been through enough to make him grow 
 gray, and just two weeks before the letter last 
 mentioned was written he had had fresh proof of 
 how hard it was for him to gain any credit for his 
 labors. Certainly one would think that at such a
 
 266 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 time patriotic services would have been recognized, 
 and that men would have been glad to give credit 
 to one another for any exertion, however small, in 
 behalf of the common cause. And yet we find 
 Simms adding a postscript to his letter to Miles of 
 April 2, which runs as follows : 
 
 "I suppose you have seen how quietly all my 
 agency in the suggestion of the battery of rail iron 
 and ranging timber has been ignored. In my let 
 ters to you and to Jamison, and the letters to you 
 were all transferred to him, I planned batteries 
 for land and water, went into details, showed all the 
 advantages, showed how the structure should be 
 made casemate, bomb-proof, how the plane should 
 be inclined to the rear, how the ' rat trap ' in the 
 rear might be made to improve upon everything 
 hitherto used. In your letters to me you pro 
 fessed to know nothing of these things, and to have 
 no such intimacy with military men as to justify 
 you in approaching them on the subject. In Jami 
 son's letters, he spoke of the great difficulty which 
 he had in persuading military men to consider the 
 subject; all seemed to doubt and to distrust every 
 thing which was novel, and from the hands of a 
 civilian. But gradually, as public opinion abroad 
 began to speak of the conception as working a rev 
 olution in such structures, I find the battery a sub 
 ject of great attention, and all my poor agency in 
 it ignored wholly. And yet my plans and sugges 
 tions covered this and the floating battery, and 
 covered other schemes for temporary structures, by
 
 THE WAR. 267 
 
 which I proposed a covered approach to the walls 
 of Sumter, which should be as secure against hand 
 grenades as against cannon Well ! it is not 
 much More : l If there was any strategic device 
 for the relief of Fort Sumter, I argued and antici 
 pated it in my letters to Jamison written almost 
 nightly for months ! Enough ! Yet one feels a 
 little sore that there should be no record of a 
 patriotism and a devotion to his country, which has 
 left him little time or thought for anything else. 
 Ever since the moment of secession, and for years 
 before, in my labors of political literature, I had 
 the same fate." 
 
 Poor old man ! but his friend Miles at least 
 stuck by him and declared that to Simms more than 
 to any one else were due the preparations made in 
 Charleston for the reduction of Sumter. And 
 while displaying this intense, but to us misguided 
 patriotism, the zealous partisan was striving to in 
 form himself of all that was being written against 
 his favorite doctrine of the right of secession. In 
 the letter to which the above postscript was added 
 he had written : " I could wish to get every publi 
 cation which in any degree related to the secession 
 movement. I wish to fortify myself in regard to 
 the controversy, as well from the opposite stand 
 point as from our own." The results of his stud 
 ies were seen in editorial after editorial in the 
 
 1 The effects of his excitement are to be seen in the style of 
 Simms's letters at this time. His ellipses are often confusing, aa 
 in the above sentence.
 
 268 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 "Mercury." For no ignoring of his labors could 
 prevent him from giving up his heart and soul to 
 the cause of his State, and, as we have seen, he did 
 not even stop writing about his batteries. 
 
 The war was now fairly begun, and, if his corre 
 spondence did not naturally decrease, it is at least 
 certain that few of his letters for the next four 
 years have been preserved. From such as have 
 come to light we see that he was in a constant state 
 of anxiety both for his country and for his family. 
 There was no chance now for summer trips, and 
 ..although in August, 1861, he wrote to his friend 
 Dr. Porcher that the country about Woodlands 
 was perfectly healthy, there being only one case of 
 fever to seventy negroes, we are inclined to doubt 
 his statement when we find him in the same year 
 losing two of his children from fever of a malig 
 nant type. One of these victims was his fifth son, 
 Sydney Hammond, aged two years, the other was 
 Miles 's god-daughter Harriet, aged nearly four. 
 
 But though mistaken as to the healthfulness of 
 Woodlands, he knew the place well in other re 
 spects. Dr. Porcher had just published an essay 
 on the plants of South Carolina and their use in 
 time of war. Here he touched a hobby of Simms's, 
 and the latter wrote him long letters full of sug 
 gestions. Sojourns among the Indians and back 
 woodsmen had enabled our versatile author to pick 
 up much botanical knowledge and many curious 
 recipes for the compounding of medicines and of 
 other useful articles. Soap, cartridge boxes, ink,
 
 THE WAR. 269 
 
 bonnets, and peanut chocolate, are among the 
 things that can be made easily, the last-named 
 concoction being a very good substitute for coffee, 
 as Porcher can learn for himself if he will run up 
 to Woodlands, where there is no scarcity as yet of 
 "hog and hominy" (April 14, 1863). 
 
 If Porcher had made the visit, he would not 
 have found the Woodlands at which Simms had 
 passed so many years of pleasure and of pain. The 
 old house, with its broad piazza, and the study where 
 so many romances had been written, was no more. 
 For about the first of April, 1862, the main house 
 took fire from some unknown cause and burned to 
 the ground ; and if its owner had not some months 
 previously built a wing to accommodate his over 
 flowing library, the family would have had no shel 
 ter save an outhouse or two. 
 
 Simms had driven with General Jamison to Mid 
 way, to learn what was happening at the seat of 
 war. They got back about one o'clock at night, 
 and Jamison drove away home, while Simms went 
 quietly to bed, little dreaming that in three hours 
 he would have to flee for his life. Beginning in 
 the attic, the fire made such headway that when it 
 was discovered at four in the morning, there was 
 no chance to save the house. The slaves, however, 
 worked with a will, and in response to Mrs. 
 Simms's urgent cries, "Boys, save my husband's 
 library," the fire was prevented from spreading to 
 the wing. The resulting desolation can be best 
 comprehended from the following letter to Miles :
 
 270 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 WOODLANDS in Ruins, April 10. 
 
 Thanks, dear friend, for your kind letter. It is 
 the most perfect solace I have, to find gathering to 
 me at this juncture troops of friends. Your words 
 are most precious among them. You have been 
 beside me in previous and, I think, worse trials. 
 Gladly now would I give my dwelling and all that 
 I have saved, for the restoration of my two boys. 
 And since then, a third boy, and a girl, your own 
 protege, and, I think, one of the most promising 
 and lovely of my children. Truly, I am pursued 
 by a hungry fate ! But I will not succumb. It 
 may crush, but shall not subject me, no [sic] more 
 than Yankeedom shall subject our country. I am 
 nappy to tell you that I have saved all my manu 
 scripts, and nearly all my library. I fortunately 
 built, only the last year, a wing to the dwelling, 
 connected by a corridor, twenty feet in length. 
 The wing was saved. But for this removal of my 
 books, they must have been all lost. And only a 
 few days before the fire, I gathered up all my man 
 uscripts matter enough for fifty volumes, and 
 packed it into trunks, not knowing how soon I 
 should have to fly, thinking more of the Yan 
 kees than of midnight fires, and wishing to be 
 ready. Had I lost my library and manuscripts 
 the blow would have been insupportable. As it is, 
 I mean to die with harness on my back. 
 
 My family is occupying my library and two out 
 houses. I write you this letter from a corner of 
 my carriage house. I am building two rooms in a
 
 THE WAR. 271 
 
 board house, which will afford me tolerable shelter 
 from the summer, and if the insurance company 
 will pay, as I am promised, seventy-five in the 
 hundred, I shall get enough, with my own bricklay 
 ers and workmen, to rebuild the walls and roof of 
 my old mansion. But to restore is impossible. 
 My loss in money is about $10,000. I have lost 
 the best part of my furniture, every bedstead 
 but one, half of my bedding, bed and other 
 clothes, drawers, wardrobes, crockery, medicine 
 case, and pictures, statuettes, candelabra, orna 
 ments, and a thousand toys, ornaments, mementos, 
 such as can never be replaced, the accumulations 
 of two or three families, for five generations. All 
 the stores in my pantry were destroyed. Luckily 
 my meat house and other outhouses were saved. 
 My negroes worked zealously and with a loving 
 devotedness, which was quite grateful to me. I had 
 them on the roofs of corridor, library, and kitchen ; 
 narrowly escaped myself by a ladder from an upper 
 window, while the floors overhead were falling in. 
 I do not despair, do not despond, but verily it 
 tasks all my courage and strength to endure such 
 repeated strokes of fortune. . . . 
 
 So far he writes of himself ; the rest of the letter 
 is occupied with complaints of the neglect of his 
 counsels by the authorities and with new counsels 
 as sure to be disregarded. He asks "why artil 
 lerists should not be armed with pikes, instead of 
 with short swords which are of no use : " since
 
 272 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 "pikes in the hands of artillerists could protect a 
 battery against any dash of cavalry." "The art 
 of war," he continues, "is no more perfect than 
 any other art, and is susceptible of a thousand im 
 provements, which are not to be expected from the 
 mere soldiers of drill and routine." 
 
 But if his counsels were disregarded by "drill 
 and routine " officials, his losses were not forgotten 
 by his friends, some of whom raised a subscription 
 of three thousand dollars to help him to rebuild. 
 He also tried to make a little money by his pen, 
 which had of late been idle, for he sent the pro 
 prietors of the "Southern Illustrated News" 
 Richmond gentlemen who were rash enough to 
 promise their subscribers original contributions 
 by Dickens and Thackeray certain poetical 
 "Sketches in Greece," which he had had by him 
 for six years, as well as a serial entitled "Paddy 
 McGann, or The Demon of the Stump," a tale of 
 a humorous Irishman who fancies himself haunted 
 by a demon, but who is really worried out of his 
 life by a shrewish spouse. Simms was writing 
 this story at the time of the battle of Fredericks- 
 burg, December 13, 1862, and the following sen 
 tences, taken from the first chapter, give a vivid 
 picture of the hopes which the victory raised : 
 
 "Even as I write the thunder rolls westward 
 from the east. There is storm along the heights 
 of Virginia. The cry is havoc ; the war-dogs are 
 again unleashed! The tempest rages, and the 
 bloody banner of the foe goes down in its own
 
 THE WAR. 273 
 
 blood. We are victors, and this time the route 1 
 is complete. Thirty thousand [sic] of the insolent 
 invaders bite the dust. Our triumph is secure, 
 our independence ! and Peace, with her beautiful 
 rainbow, plucked from the bosom of the storm, 
 and spread from east to west, from north to south, 
 over all the sunny plains and snowy heights of our 
 beloved Apalachia, sends our gallant sons back 
 once more to the calm blessings of each hospitable 
 home." And the fierceness of his exultation is 
 explained when we read on: "It is not all over, 
 our happy life, my friend ! We shall enjoy the 
 old sports of our sweet little river once more, in 
 communion with our noble-hearted companions. It 
 cannot be that God will deliver us into the hands of 
 these atrocious heathens. As between us and the 
 Deity, there is no doubt a sad reckoning to make; 
 but as between us and these accursed Yankees, no 
 reproach lies at our doors, unless that single one of 
 having too long slept within the coil of the serpent. 
 I have faith in God, my friend. He may punish 
 us, and we must suffer, for this is the meed of our 
 desert; but he will not let us sink. I have faith 
 in his promise, in his mercy, and I know that 
 after this tribulation, our peace shall return once 
 more, our prosperity, our friends ; and the 'song 
 of the turtle shall be heard in the land. ' ' 
 
 It is pathetic to read these heartfelt utterances, 
 
 1 One of the numerous typographical errors of which Southern 
 authors were constantly complaining. It is hardly probable that 
 Sinims intended to use the obsolete spelling.
 
 274 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 committed with such conviction of righteous inten 
 tion to the worn type and wretched paper familiar 
 to all who have interested themselves in Confeder 
 ate literature. Those men of the old South felt 
 that their existence as a primitive people was at 
 stake ; they felt that the easy, picturesque life they 
 led depended for its perpetuation upon their good 
 swords, and they fought as the soldiers of Charles 
 fought the Saracens at Tours, or as Goth and Ro 
 man fought Attila and his Huns at Chalons. In 
 their patriotic songs they spoke of the Northern 
 troops as Huns and Vandals; for they knew too 
 well that a Northern conquest meant the destruc 
 tion of their peculiar civilization. But they did 
 not and they could not realize that the parallel be 
 tween themselves and the soldiers of Aetius was 
 apparent only. They did not and they could not 
 realize that they were fighting, not for the true re 
 ligion and the higher civilization, but for the per 
 petuation of a barbarous institution and of anarchy 
 disguised. 1 And yet who that sees their mistake 
 to-day would be so rash as to declare that if he had 
 lived in their times and in their environment, he 
 would have acted differently ? And who shall deny 
 that they were brave men, pouring out their blood 
 for a cause which to them was true and holy and 
 blessed of God himself? It is idle to deny their 
 bravery, although that, like most of their qualities, 
 
 1 It is meant, of course, that this would have been the result of 
 their victory not that they consciously fought for any such re 
 suit. .
 
 THE WAE. 275 
 
 was a "survival," and it is equally idle to affirm 
 that a whole people can astonish a world by their 
 heroism in defense of a cause in which they do not 
 believe. 
 
 To return, however, to our wrought-up romancer. 
 "Paddy McGann" lies in the dingy pages of the 
 pretentious Richmond weekly, and no one will ever 
 endeavor to resurrect it. There is no need to do 
 so, unless one wishes to get a pleasant description 
 of the Edisto, the "sweet little river" of the 
 above extracts, and of the easy-going life which 
 Simms and Jamison and their neighbors lived on 
 its banks. But all these good men are gathered to 
 their fathers, and few will care to know how Jami 
 son excelled any man in the State in making a 
 cocktail, and Simms in making a punch. The old 
 life is gone, and as Simms felt it going his outcries 
 against the devastating "Northern hordes" became 
 shriller and shriller. As one reads some of the 
 poems he was in the habit of dashing off, as the 
 newspapers brought an account of a new battle, one 
 can fancy that one is listening to the wail of a Ro 
 manized Briton telling of the cruel deeds he has 
 seen perpetrated by the yellow-haired barbarians 
 from over sea. 
 
 However exaggerated these poems might be, they 
 came from his heart, and were all that he could 
 write. His drama on "Benedict Arnold," which 
 he published in the "Magnolia," another Rich 
 mond weekly, bored him greatly, as he confessed 
 to Hayne. "My heart," he continued, "is too
 
 27G WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 full of anxiety to suffer me to write, and though I 
 have a contract for some two hundred dollars' 
 worth of prose, I find myself unable to divert my 
 thoughts from the crisis in which the country trem 
 bles in suspense. What I write is in a spasm, a 
 single burst of passion, hope, or scorn, or rage, 
 or exultation " (July 29, 1863). 
 
 Six weeks later a nearer grief assailed him. On 
 September 10, 1863, his wife died, in her forty-sev 
 enth year. Not quite a year before, she had given 
 birth to her sixth son and thirteenth child, Charles 
 Carroll, the namesake, probably, of the gentleman 
 in whose office Simms had studied law. For some 
 time previously Simms had mentioned in his letters 
 that his wife was not well ; but he had no idea that 
 her condition was critical. He wrote later to Doc 
 tor Porcher, that the calamity fell upon him like a 
 bolt out of a clear sky. He was " seized with men 
 tal paroxysms of great violence, which threatened 
 the integrity of" his brain. For four days and 
 nights he neither ate nor slept ; and but for opiates 
 would have gone mad. This attack was followed 
 by a fever which prostrated him for a month. 
 
 Nevertheless, the thought of his children brought 
 him at last to his feet, and he determined for their 
 sakes to battle with the world once more. How 
 the winter was passed is not known, but it appears 
 from a letter to Hayne that early in May he went 
 to Columbia with his eldest son and namesake, 
 whose furlough had just expired. Gilmore was 
 now of age, and whatever his fears for his son's
 
 THE WAE. 277 
 
 safety, the father was proud to have at least one 
 of his name and blood battling for the Southern 
 cause. The young man went to Virginia, and 
 nearly lost his life at the battle of Trevilian's. A 
 kind lady of the neighborhood nursed him, and sent 
 him home to even harder labors than campaigning 
 had been, labors of which there will be occasion 
 to speak before long. 
 
 While in Columbia Simms saw Timrod, and 
 when he got back to Woodlands, he wrote to 
 Hayne, May 8, 1864, as follows: "I saw Timrod, 
 and was glad to find him in better health and spir 
 its than he has had for years. ... If his situation 
 lessens his opportunities for verse writing, it at all 
 events gives him the creature comforts, and with a 
 young wife, he has need of all he can earn in these 
 perilous times. Besides, he is making himself a 
 fine prose writer, and the practice in a daily news 
 paper will improve his energies, without materially 
 disparaging [?] the proprieties and graces of his 
 style. His tendency is to the tragical, but a daily 
 newspaper will modify this. A daily newspaper 
 in a village like Columbia is far different from 
 that of a great commercial city, and the very lim 
 ited space accorded by our papers now, lessens the 
 strain upon the mind. The labor is not exhaustive, 
 nor very various. He has only to prepare a couple 
 of dwarf essays, making a single column, and the 
 pleasant public is satisfied. These he does so well 
 that they have reason to be so. Briefly, our friend 
 is in a fair way to fatten and be happy, though his
 
 278 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 muse becomes costive and complains of his mesal 
 liances. ... I did not meet with Tim's wife, 
 though he gave me an invitation to see her. But 
 the walk was too much for me ; I am scarcely good 
 for a mile heat nowadays." 
 
 In the same letter he referred to a poem on Stone 
 wall Jackson, which was still unfinished (it remained 
 so), and which he regarded as fine in conception and 
 good in execution. He added : " I should not for 
 get to say that recently I finished what I think a 
 very creditable poem, entitled 'Midnight Chaunt in 
 Autumn.' It was begun several years ago, and 
 shortly after I had lost two noble boys, in one day, 
 by yellow fever. But then after writing a dozen 
 stanzas, my heart failed me, if not my head, and 
 the manuscript was thrown aside. Happening re 
 cently upon it, and under similar circumstances of 
 suffering and season, I finished it. It makes some 
 eighty verses, quatrains. You will like it, I think, 
 though whether it sees the printers in a hurry is 
 very questionable. With the plantation upon me, 
 the cares of the family, anxieties without number, 
 tithes and taxes to be provided, and a still heavy 
 burden of correspondence, life seems escaping from 
 me, frittered away in small things and [?] de 
 tails." Then follow brief references to the pri 
 vations of the times. They have enough food at 
 Woodlands, but no variety. Stimulants, too, are 
 wanting, though Rhett has recently sent him a 
 gallon of whiskey, and consequently he cannot 
 put a stop to his chills and fever. But the war will
 
 THE WAR. 279 
 
 end this year, and if Hayne wants to make money 
 he had better desert poetry for a while and turn to 
 prose. 
 
 So the days passed. On September 17, 1864, 
 he wrote to Hayne that he was worn out, having 
 just returned from Columbia, whither he had been 
 to attend the funeral of his old friend Jamison, who 
 had died of the yellow fever. The disease was all 
 over Charleston, and so were the enemy's shells. 
 Hood, he hears, has been miserably outgeneraled 
 by Sherman. Unless Johnston or Lee or Beau- 
 regard is sent against the latter, the enemy will 
 penetrate to Macon, Augusta, Andersonville, etc. 
 He foresees the end, unless imbecility in office, civil 
 and military, be checked. On November 21, he 
 writes to the same friend that he has been harvest 
 ing his sorry crop. Another year of war, and the 
 planters will produce nothing. He has lost two 
 horses and two mules within the year and cannot 
 replace them, and all his agricultural implements 
 are worn out. In literature he does little or no 
 thing. A few short poems are all he has done in 
 eighteen months. And still he has to work for the 
 public, for he goes to Columbia next week as a 
 member of the Board of Visitors of Military Acad 
 emies. 
 
 Whether he stayed at Columbia from this time 
 #n, or whether he returned to Woodlands and made 
 arrangements for moving with his younger chil 
 dren to the city, is uncertain; but it seems clear 
 that by the first of the new year, 1865, he was no
 
 280 WILLIAM GILMOEE simrs. 
 
 longer residing at his plantation. The place was 
 not deserted, however, for a Mrs. Pinckney and 
 her family were left as occupants. Simms, of 
 course, thought that Sherman would soon leave 
 Savannah on his northward march; but he proba 
 bly fancied, as many did, that Charleston would 
 be the object of assault, and that the middle country, 
 in which Columbia lay, would either be fairly safe 
 from the ravages of the main body of the enemy, 
 as lying out of their line of march, or else that the 
 Confederate government would send Johnston to 
 defend South Carolina's capital city. If such were 
 his expectations, and it is fair to infer from a 
 subsequent publication that he did indulge them, 
 they were destined to be cruelly disappointed. 
 Barnwell and Midway lay directly in the path 
 taken by the conquerors, and suffered accordingly. 
 Fugitives began to pour into Columbia, bringing 
 heart-rending tales of the desolation that followed 
 every step that Sherman took, and it was not many 
 days after the memorable first of February, when 
 the northward march began, before Simms learned 
 that his newly built house, his library that had but 
 recently escaped so narrowly, and all his outhouses 
 had been completely destroyed by the same ele 
 ment that had so often proved his foe. But his 
 private losses were nothing when contrasted with 
 the horrors that were enacted under his very eyes 
 on that Black Friday (February 17), which saw 
 the beautiful old town of Columbia given up to 
 pillage and the flames.
 
 THE WAR. 281 
 
 It is not proposed to give an account here of 
 these horrors or to enter upon any discussion of the 
 much vexed question, "Who burned Columbia? " 
 All who desire to know what Simms saw and what 
 he thought of the conduct of the Northern general 
 and his troops are referred to a pamphlet entitled 
 " Sack and Destruction of the City of Columbia, 
 S. C.," published by our author from the ruined city 
 itself shortly after Sherman left it. Simms never 
 wrote anything more graphic than this account of 
 what he had seen and heard. Doubtless his vehe 
 mence induced him to exaggerate in places, but it 
 is hard to read his stirring pages without coming 
 to the conclusion that the sack of Columbia is one 
 of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated by the 
 troops of a civilized country. 
 
 Simms himself did not fare badly, but when he 
 saw the magnificent library and scientific collections 
 of his friend Dr. R. W. Gibbes, the antiquarian, 
 fired in the owner's presence amid the jeers of rude 
 soldiers, he doubtless thought of the fate of his own 
 library at Woodlands, and ground his teeth in im 
 potent rage. He saved his watch by his pres 
 ence of mind, for when accosted by soldiers and 
 asked the time of day, he would look innocently to 
 where the city-hall clock once stood, and reply, 
 " Our city clock is gone, you see, but it must be 
 near ." Twelve hundred less astute citizens, 
 anxious to please, are said to have pulled out their 
 watches only to have them snatched away. 
 Another and pleasanter incident has been recorded
 
 282 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 by Mr. Aldrich, Simms's neighbor. A young 
 Northern officer knocked at the door of the house 
 where Simms and his children were staying. The 
 novelist answered the summons in person, and after 
 the usual formalities, the visitor said, " Sir, I have 
 enjoyed too much pleasure from your works not to 
 feel grateful. You belong to the Union, and I 
 have come to see if lean render you any service." 
 Simms thanked him and said that he desired only 
 to have his family saved from intrusion. The offi 
 cer departed, and in a few moments a guard ap 
 peared, who were polite and efficient in performing 
 their duty. It is but fair to add that this is by 
 no means the only instance of courtesy on the part 
 of individual officers and soldiers of the Union 
 army to the oppressed inhabitants of Columbia. 
 
 Another incident recorded by Mr. Aldrich may 
 be referred to. Shortly after the destruction of 
 Woodlands he met Simms at Columbia, and nat 
 urally began to sympathize with him over his 
 losses ; but Simms turned around almost fiercely, 
 and exclaimed, "Talk not to me about my losses, 
 when the State is lost." He was not the man, how 
 ever, to think anything lost for long, and in little 
 over a month after the burning of the city, he had 
 persuaded a printer, Mr. Julian A. Selby, to under 
 take a triweekly newspaper under the appropriate 
 title of the "Columbia Pho3nix." Paper, press, 
 and type had to be procured from a distance, but 
 after toilsome trips Selby succeeded in getting the 
 necessary supplies, and on March 21, 1865, the
 
 THE WAR. 283 
 
 first number made its appearance. Some of the 
 earlier numbers are now before me. Curious, 
 badly printed sheets they are, about six by eighteen 
 inches, intended to fold so as to give six small pages. 
 No subscriptions are taken, but each number retails 
 for one dollar. After number nine, the paper be 
 comes a daily as well as a triweekly, and persons 
 are allowed to subscribe for a month at twenty and 
 ten dollars respectively, strictly in advance. The 
 veteran editor of nullification times is, of course, 
 at the head of the editorial staff, probably is the 
 staff, and is in his element. Through the first 
 twelve numbers runs the account of the sack of 
 Columbia, which has been already mentioned in 
 its pamphlet form. Besides this there are stinging 
 editorials, and, what is more surprising, hopeful 
 prognostications of the future of the war. An oc 
 casional telegram makes its appearance, and a fair 
 number of advertisements, among which is one that 
 offers for sale a set of Simms's romances. But an 
 editorial entitled "Woodlands," which appeared in 
 the issue for Wednesday, April 12, 1865, concerns 
 us more narrowly, and we note that just four years 
 have elapsed since that firing on Sumter which 
 Simms so earnestly counseled. 
 
 This editorial is nothing more than a long ac 
 count, evidently from Simms's hand, of the final 
 burning of Woodlands. From it we learn that 
 Mrs. Pinckney, the lady in charge of the place, 
 sent a note to General Blair requesting protection 
 for the dwelling and library. Before an answer
 
 284 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 could be received, bands of stragglers had entered 
 the house, only six rooms of which had been re 
 built, and begun their work of destruction. In 
 the midst of this turmoil, a guard arrived, which 
 was shortly followed by General Blair himself, in 
 company with other officers. The gentlemen spent 
 some time examining the library, and when they 
 retired they took away with them only some maps 
 of the State and a couple of fowling pieces. While 
 the guard remained, nothing was disturbed, but 
 with the departure of the soldiers, frequent attempts 
 were made to burn the house, and the ladies occu 
 pying it fled to Midway for protection. At day 
 break the servants discovered that the building was 
 in flames, and that all their labors to preserve it 
 would be fruitless. The library was the first to 
 burn, and not a volume was saved. The larger 
 and better furniture had been previously sent off, 
 and many of the choicer books had been packed in 
 boxes, to be removed whenever transportation could 
 be obtained. Thus the thievish incendiaries, who 
 did not care for books, got little for their pains, 
 and in view of this fact some of the neighbors con 
 ceived the idea that the house must have been fired 
 by Simms's own negroes, particularly by his trusted 
 body servant. This man was actually tried by a 
 court of freeholders, but was acquitted. Simms 
 evidently did not believe the charge, but it was re 
 peated by Mr. Aldrich five years later. For the 
 credit of human nature it may be hoped that Simms 
 was rijrht.
 
 THE WAR. 285 
 
 Before Simms wrote the description of his losses, 
 which has been abridged above, Lee had surren 
 dered at Appomattox, and the war was practically 
 at an end. Probably it was because he could not 
 bear to think of his people's losses that he occu 
 pied himself in writing minutely of his own. He 
 did it with a calmness which it is difficult to imi 
 tate. For who shall describe how the old partisan, 
 who had once in his imagination crushed the North 
 like an egg, felt during those last weary months, 
 when the defeat of all his hopes stared him in the 
 face? He had entered the period of struggle with 
 confidence in the justice as well as in the success of 
 his cause ; he came out still confident of the justice, 
 but struggling in vain to reconcile the two ideas of 
 a just cause and an unsuccessful one. Many hon 
 est people have since his day been trying with equal 
 futility to effect a similar reconciliation. But it 
 will not do. The facts of universal history warn 
 them that any such attempt is futile. No people, 
 however brave and true, can wage an eventually 
 successful war with advancing civilization, and 
 this is what the South was trying to do. It is vain 
 to talk of constitutional rights that date from a 
 century back ; it is vain to say that deep and honest 
 conviction in the truth of a cause makes a cause 
 true ; it is vain to say that mere money and cow 
 ardice and wrong are on the successful side, and 
 all bravery and right on the defeated side. Civil 
 wars do not divide a people on such lines ; if they 
 did, it would be idle to speak of a nation's fulfilling
 
 286 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 its destiny under the direction of God. But if 
 nations do not fulfill their destinies under the direc 
 tion of God, what need is there to speculate about 
 the past or the future at all ; what has history to do 
 in such a reign of Chaos and old Night ? 
 
 No! the most loyal Southerner may as well 
 make up his mind to face the fact that the cause 
 for which Simms labored, and for which so many 
 thousands of brave men died, was a losing cause, in 
 consequence of the fact that the people that upheld 
 it were fighting to perpetuate an institution op 
 posed to progress, an institution that blocked the 
 path which a great nation had to take. In view 
 of this truth, it does not seem necessary to insist 
 upon the part played by the North in the great 
 contest. It is idle to deny that many things were 
 done by her zealous sons, and many things left un 
 done by her lukewarm sons, that tended to hasten 
 the South upon her downward course, and to add 
 to her frenzy and blindness. For it is one of the 
 curses of an institution like slavery that its baleful 
 effects are not confined to its upholders, but react 
 upon its opponents. "Sweetness and light" are 
 virtues that are rarely to be traced in the history 
 of the American people between 1820 and 1865. It 
 could not have been otherwise. "Sweetness and 
 light " had little place in a struggle against slav 
 ery ; for civilization was never known to go forward 
 in satin slippers. Doubtless many good people, 
 reading the record of these pitiful times, have fan 
 cied that if a little "sweetness and light" had ap-
 
 THE WAR. 287 
 
 peared, a few more concessions been made, the re 
 sult would have been different. Such fancies are 
 idle. An old order of things had been planted in 
 a portion of this country by perfectly natural pro 
 cesses; and the time had come for it to give way 
 to a new order of things. But in history there is 
 no beneficent Despot who says, "Let the old order 
 vanish and the new be born." All life is a strug 
 gle ; and the higher planes of existence, individual 
 as well as national, are reached by toil, by slow 
 degrees, by pain. The war of secession, therefore, 
 having been inevitable, it is not necessary to point 
 out all the false steps made by the North. These 
 false steps delayed the day of change, and made 
 the ordeal through which the South had to pass 
 more bitter and terrible, while reacting, as such 
 steps are sure to do, upon the people that made 
 them. The South, also, took false steps of her 
 own accord, and, as in the case of the North, those 
 false steps were fearfully atoned for. But it was 
 the forces of destiny in the main that placed the 
 South in her direful position ; and it was the forces 
 of destiny that made the North the instrument by 
 which the whole country, North and South, was 
 finally saved for what we all believe will be a glo 
 rious future. 
 
 This view of the matter cannot of course be a 
 popular one, and it has its historical limitations. 
 Most readers prefer the historical method of Car- 
 lyle to that of Buckle, because it is pleasanter to 
 praise and blame men than to stand dumb before
 
 288 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 the inscrutable workings of law. Then again few 
 readers, and few historians, see how it is possible 
 to use both methods at one and the same time. 
 Yet this has to be done. It is just as essential to 
 point out the importance of representative men like 
 Garrison and Simms as to point out the fact that 
 both North and South were merely fulfilling their 
 respective destinies. Law and the individual that 
 embodies its workings are the two foci around 
 which the historian must move; and, if the curve 
 he traces is not a perfect circle, it is not his fault. 
 He is saved at any rate from much erratic wander 
 ing; from dropping downwards into the regions of 
 the commonplace, the base, and the low. He is 
 saved, in the particular instance we are consider 
 ing, from the absurdity of representing two sections 
 of practically the same great race as being entirely 
 the children of light and the children of darkness 
 respectively. He is saved from imagining that all 
 virtue concentrated itself to the north of a certain 
 iustoric line and all vice to the south of it, or vice 
 versa, and that if, since the war, there has been 
 some drifting of the virtues southward or north 
 ward, they are promptly recalled and installed in 
 their proper places on the eve of a presidential elec 
 tion. He is saved from all this, and at the same 
 time is allowed to grow eloquent over truly great 
 men like Lincoln and Lee, and also to render the 
 negative service of pointing out that not all the 
 popular heroes of either side are worthy of the hom 
 age they are receiving. He can also point out the
 
 THE WAR. 289 
 
 instructive parallel that exists between the straggle 
 of Cavalier and Puritan on either side of the ocean, 
 can show that the qualities of neither are thor 
 oughly great and lovable, but that in their amalga 
 mation a great people must be produced. But he 
 can also grow tedious. 
 
 Yet before this chapter closes, attention should 
 be called once more to the trials that befell Simms 
 during these terrible years. He had done much to 
 bring on the war that ruined him, and yet he had 
 only done what seemed to him to be just and right. 
 If he had been conscious of wrong-doing, it would 
 be time to speak of retribution; but the word 
 would be out of place in connection with an honest 
 man. As a mistaken man he suffered from the 
 natural consequences of his mistakes; but who 
 can recount his losses without feeling that his lot 
 was indeed a pathetic one ? His calling gone, his 
 stereotype plates confiscated, his dwelling twice 
 burned down, his books destroyed, friends, two 
 children, and wife taken from him, and his State 
 and section in the dust of humiliation and defeat, 
 who shall say that he was not a sorely tried man? 
 And yet he never proved himself a truer or nobler 
 man than in these days of adversity, days which 
 to him were hardly cheered by the vision of the 
 new order that was to be. 
 
 For out of the ashes of the old South, a new 
 and better South has arisen. A disintegrated and 
 primitive people have become united among them 
 selves and with their former foes, and are moving
 
 290 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 forward upon the path of progress. Instead of the 
 past, they have the future to look upon ; instead of 
 a mere State, they have a nation to trust in and to 
 maintain. They have retained all that was good 
 in the old South, and to their inherited virtues 
 and powers they will add, as the years go by, vir 
 tues and powers that must come to any people that 
 move forward with civilization. If they have not 
 yet shaken themselves loose from the clogs of prim 
 itive custom which they have inherited from their 
 ancestors; if the slave in the person of the f reed- 
 man still stands in the way of their progress, they 
 will nevertheless push on, and in the course of years 
 the clogs will fall from them and the freedman 
 will be a help instead of a hindrance. They have 
 the energy of a new people, and they have a terri 
 tory almost boundless and inexhaustible. They 
 have awakened from their nightmares and gone 
 out into the fresh air of the morning, and the 
 breeze has driven the fever from their brows. 
 They have ceased to lament the tossing hours, the 
 fitful anguish of the night when tney called upon 
 God and thought he did not hear them, and the 
 burden of their song of deliverance rolls ever up 
 to his throne : 
 
 " Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the
 
 CHAPTER VTEI. 
 
 LAST YEARS. 
 
 No precise statement can be made about Simms's 
 movements between March and November, 1865. 
 Only one scrap of writing in any way connected 
 with him has been discovered ; and that is the or 
 der signed by Colonel James C. Beecher, giving 
 the negroes on Simms's plantation permission to 
 gather the growing crops. Early in November he 
 went to New York in order to renew his relations 
 with his publishers, a purpose which was only par 
 tially accomplished. From the St. Nicholas hotel 
 he addressed notes on November 5 and 7 to his two 
 Brooklyn friends, Mr. William H. Ferris and Mr. 
 John J. Bockie, asking if they were afraid that 
 they would be compromised by coming to see him. 
 They went immediately, and showed him by many 
 acts of kindness that nothing that had happened 
 could affect their friendship for him. Nor were his 
 other friends, like Duyckinck and Lawson, less 
 anxious to show him that they saw in the gray- 
 bearded, sad old man only the strong and viva 
 cious good comrade of twenty years before. His 
 visit was probably a short one, and in a pecuniary 
 sense unprofitable; but it must have done him a
 
 292 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 world of good to see that his misfortunes could not 
 alienate his friends. In December he was back in 
 South Carolina and in editorial harness, this time 
 in Charleston, as associate editor with Timrod of 
 the "Daily South Carolinian," a paper of which 
 Mr. Felix G. De Fontaine was chief editor and 
 proprietor. It was a sad editorial that he wrote 
 for his readers on the first Christmas morning after 
 the return of peace. Peace ! the word was a mock 
 ery to men and women living under the terrors of 
 military and, what was worse, negro rule. 
 
 With the new year our materials again be 
 come voluminous. Simms writes to Bockie and 
 Duyckinck to negotiate in any way they can with 
 his publishers, for newspaper drudgery is terrible. 
 De Fontaine is absent most of the time, and Tim- 
 rod does not contribute a line for weeks together. 
 Five columns of editorials are not prepared in a mo 
 ment, and it is not pleasant to think that there is a 
 rumor on the streets that the authorities are going 
 to suppress the "Carolinian" for being a little too 
 free in its criticisms of passing events. Still more 
 unpleasant is it to work till the wee small hours, 
 and to hear nothing said about pay day. But as 
 he manages to give a whist party to eight old 
 friends, with plenty of oysters and whiskey punch 
 to solace such as do not care for the rigor of the 
 game, one perceives that his condition is not alto 
 gether cheerless. Then, too, one finds that no 
 amount of civil or political troubles can put a stop 
 to weddings, and one feels that Simms must have
 
 LAST YEARS. 293 
 
 been glad to give away, in his old age, his daughter 
 Chevillette to a man whom he respected and ad 
 mired, Major Daniel Rowe. He also found time 
 to write several chapters of a new romance, "The 
 Brothers of the Coast," a pirate story; and if he 
 soon laid this work aside, it must have been some 
 comfort to feel that he could work at his old trade 
 at all. 
 
 But in February, De Fontaine and Timrod re 
 moved with their newspaper to Columbia, and 
 Simms, after taking a brief trip to Florida, formed 
 a connection with the "Courier." He was all the 
 while, however, meditating a permanent removal 
 to the North, where he would have a better market 
 for his wares. Woodlands was practically useless 
 now, and his eldest son, Gilmore, who was also 
 studying law, had great difficulty in getting any 
 negro hands to work for him. They moved to their 
 labor, Simms wrote, like elephants with the gout. 
 They stole all the growing crops, and shot down the 
 hogs and cattle that happened to stray into the 
 woods. They all carried guns, and insulted every 
 white man and woman they met, provided they 
 thought they could do it with impunity. In brief, 
 the Devil was let loose again, to quote the emphatic 
 language of our author. 
 
 Yet Charleston was no better. Nobody knew 
 what to expect from the conquerors or from the in 
 solent freedmen. Provisions were at famine prices. 
 The richer a man had been before the war, the 
 poorer he was now likely to be ; and his previous
 
 294 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 training rendered him unfit for any active work 
 whereby he might better his fortunes. Those who 
 had saved plate and other heirlooms were gradually 
 parting with them for bread. Those who fancied 
 that they could write spent almost their last penny 
 for paper and scribbled away quires of pathetic 
 trash. Then they bought a stamp and mailed a 
 letter to Simms, begging that he would get their 
 books published. He did try to oblige them in 
 some cases, but without success ; and yet he had no 
 money, to say nothing of his time, to waste on such 
 correspondents. He wrote to Bockie: "There is 
 not a young author or authoress in the whole South 
 that does not call upon me for counsel and assis 
 tance. I shall have to go North, if only to escape 
 these calls upon my time, my thought, patience, and 
 physique." Moreover, his friends were leaving 
 Charleston. Dr. Bruns was to go to New Orleans ; 
 Timrod had gone to Columbia, and Paul Hayne to 
 his little cottage in the pine woods near Augusta. 
 It is true, his daughter, Mrs. Roach, with whom 
 he was now living, would have to be left behind, 
 along with some of his other children ; but as he was 
 obliged to contribute to their support, as well as to 
 support himself, it seemed as if it were folly to 
 stay at the South any longer. 
 
 So he went North in June, and stayed three 
 months, negotiating with publishers and visiting 
 old friends. But for some reason or other, partly 
 because, no doubt, he did not wish to abandon his 
 people, he gave up, or rather postponed, his plan
 
 LAST YEAES. 295 
 
 of making a permanent settlement in New York or 
 New Jersey, and came home to Charleston once 
 more. Before he left New York he wrote the 
 preface to a collection of Southern war poetry 
 which he had long been making, and also entered 
 into a contract with the publishers of the "Old 
 Guard," a violent magazine, edited in the interests 
 of the South, for a serial to run through the twelve 
 numbers of 186T. He also occupied his spare 
 hours by writing long letters to the "Courier" on 
 the state of literature at the North, and republished 
 his story "Marie de Berniere" as "The Ghost of 
 my Husband." 
 
 From Charleston he wrote, on October 22, to 
 Hayne at Copse Hill. He had just run up to 
 Woodlands and found the ruins the same. If he 
 ever despaired, he should do so now. But such is 
 not his wont, and he adds : " I am now cudgeling 
 my brains at a new romance, the first scene of 
 which opens at the sandhills of Augusta. I have 
 done some one hundred and twenty pages, and hope 
 by the close of the week to have done one hundred 
 and fifty more ! Nous verrons, as old Ritchie l was 
 wont to say; as Burns says, 'Perhaps it may turn 
 out a song, perhaps turn out a sermon. ' 2 I am 
 more in the mood to sermonize than sing." 
 
 Then he adds some details about their common 
 friend Timrod. "Poor Timrod is the very Prince 
 
 1 Probably Ritchie of the Richmond Enquirer, but some local 
 celebrity may be meant. 
 
 2 Epistle to a Young Friend, stanza 1.
 
 296 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 of Dolefuls, and swallowed up in distresses. He 
 now contemplates separation from his wife, that 
 she may go forth as a governess and he as a tutor, 
 in private families. He can earn nothing where 
 he is [Columbia]; has not a dollar, goes to bed 
 hungry every night, and suffers from bad health. 
 It is the mortifying thing to all of us, that none of 
 us can help him. Bruns and myself are both living 
 from hand to mouth, and not unfrequently the 
 hand carries nothing to the cavernous receptacle." 
 Still Simms hopes to be able to seize a week at 
 Christmas in order to visit Hayne and the Ham 
 monds at Augusta. 
 
 On November 27 he again writes to Hayne and 
 assures his friend of his intention to visit Copse 
 Hill. "Timrod," he adds, "has been on the 
 verge of starvation. He is now acting as private 
 secretary to [Governor] Orr." His own story for 
 the "Old Guard" is progressing, but he will have 
 to work prodigiously to finish it by Christmas. He 
 then mentions his volume of war poetry, a pro 
 duction which, in view of all that has been previ 
 ously said about Southern poetry, needs little com 
 ment. 
 
 The poems that composed it had been collected 
 mainly from newspapers, and Simms had had great 
 difficulty in communicating with the various au 
 thors, owing to the wretched condition of the South 
 ern mails. In consequence, a number of mistakes 
 crept into the volume; but it was the editor's own 
 fault when one poem was printed twice. Simms 's
 
 LAST YEARS. 297 
 
 preface, however, deserves high praise for its calm 
 tone. He has accepted the inevitable. The Union 
 is now the nation, and the war poetry of the South 
 belongs to this nation as truly as the captured can 
 non. The poems themselves are naturally not so 
 calm. Most of them are mediocre, and they con 
 tain a large amount of bathos. Good models such 
 as Campbell and Drayton are seldom followed ex 
 cept by the editor himself, but of course his contri 
 butions do not rise to the standard set by Timrod 
 and Randall. On the whole the metrical facility 
 shown by some of the writers is striking, and in 
 spite of the thin quality of the poems themselves 
 they frequently give evidence of culture and true 
 feeling on the part of the Southern cavalier. 
 
 Hayne was not the only struggling Southern 
 man of letters with whom Simms was in correspond 
 ence. Timrod wrote him doleful letters, generally 
 in pencil on scraps of paper. In one of these 
 he acknowledged a power Simms always possessed 
 over despondent and yielding natures. " Somehow 
 or other, you always magnetize me on to a little 
 strength." Cooke also wrote, complaining of the 
 criticism that "Surrey of Eagle's Nest" had re 
 ceived at the North, and giving an account of his 
 other literary labors. Judge Gayarre, too, wrote 
 from New Orleans, giving a disheartening descrip 
 tion of the condition of that city. And so Simms 
 could work away at his romance, feeling that after 
 all he was no worse off than the rest of his craft, 
 and that Charlsston, with all its misery and suffer-
 
 298 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 ing, was the proper place for his cheerful and in 
 domitable spirit to move and work in. 
 
 At Christmas he broke away from the city, and 
 paid his promised visit to Hayne at Copse Hill. 
 There he found his noble friend living at peace in 
 a little cabin, cultivating his garden and his muse. 
 Hayne had made a wise choice. Years of war time 
 had familiarized him with poverty and hardship ; 
 he had a contented nature, why, then, should 
 he plunge into active life and endeavor to grow 
 rich by outwitting or trampling down his neigh 
 bors ? Why, if he could sell his verses and raise 
 vegetables, should he undertake some respectable 
 but dull trade or profession? So he had come to 
 the pine woods of Georgia and made himself a 
 home. It was only a cabin, but'within its narrow 
 precincts he was destined to do his best work, and 
 to show to the world that it was possible for a 
 Southern writer to be a conscientious and serious 
 artist, as well as a man of tenacious will and un 
 flagging energy. 
 
 It was with a sad sort of pleasure that the two 
 friends met to exchange their views of the present, 
 and recount mournfully their recent experiences. 
 Sinims was changed in many respects, but he was 
 still as eager as ever to pass the night in profitless 
 though pleasant discussions when he should have 
 been trying to regain his strength through sleep. 
 Nor did host or guest forget to fill their glasses 
 while the talk flowed on. But pleasant visits do 
 not usually last long, and in two weeks Simms was
 
 LAST YEARS. 299 
 
 back in Charleston, working as hard as ever. He 
 had sent on five hundred pages of his story " Josce- 
 lyn" to the publishers before leaving Charleston 
 for his holiday, and the first few chapters had al 
 ready appeared ; but now he had so much to do, in 
 helping the poor people around him, that he felt 
 that the romance was dragging on his hands. His 
 judgment was right. One feels as one reads this 
 last of the revolutionary romances that even Simms 
 himself has broken down. Only here and there 
 can any touches of his former power be discov 
 ered, and but for the fact that he got a few dollars 
 by it, one could wish that he had never written 
 it. And yet how could the worn-out old man have 
 done anything better under the circumstances ? It 
 seems a shame to criticise his work at all. 
 
 Nevertheless, he could still write strong and pa 
 thetic letters. Here are a few sentences from one 
 written to his friend Bockie, on March 20, 1867 : 
 " But no language can describe the suffering which 
 prevails, especially among that class, accustomed 
 to better days, whose pride compels them to starve 
 in silence. There are hundreds, in this city, as I 
 learn from good authority, who are daily making 
 sale of such remnants of plate, crockery, furniture, 
 etc., as have been left them, to provide the daily 
 bread. And there are very few of us who do not 
 require the exertion and labor of every hour, far 
 into the night, to keep above the water. You 
 know already that I am finding bread for my chil 
 dren only out of my brains, and you can readily
 
 300 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 guess how pitiable is the result. One of my 
 literary friends [Timrod], of fine capacity, is lit 
 erally dying by inches, of poverty and disease to 
 gether ; having wife, and widowed sister, and sev 
 eral nephews and nieces in the same condition 
 of distress from poverty. But the subject is too 
 terrible, and I gladly turn from it." 
 
 He then goes on to thank Bockie for his kind 
 ness in sending presents to himself and his daugh 
 ters, all of his intimate Northern friends were del 
 icately generous to him during these trying years, 
 and he is especially grateful for the gift of a sew 
 ing machine. He writes : " Fortunately my daugh 
 ters have all been taught to do their own work, fit 
 their own dresses, and they go to work cheerfully, 
 and sing merrily while they toil; and their elas 
 ticity helps to encourage and strengthen me in my 
 labor. The picture of Irving, etc., will help to 
 cover the bomb-shell holes still in our walls. The 
 room in which I sleep is still excoriated with those 
 missiles. Please advise me, whatever is sent me, 
 of the names and addresses of the parties to whom 
 I should be grateful." Then he goes on to recount 
 how his publishers are straitened for money ; how 
 his son Gilmore is sick ; how he himself will have 
 to go up to Woodlands soon, to pay the taxes and 
 look after things ; finally, how he suffers with now 
 chronic complaints, and divides his time between 
 taking medicine and writing twenty pages of fools 
 cap per day. "For the last three nights," he 
 adds, "I have written till two in the morning. 
 Does not this look like suicide? "
 
 LAST YEARS. 301 
 
 A few weeks later, April 3, he wrote to Hayne, 
 giving a doleful account of poor Timrod, who, by 
 the way, was just about to make a visit to Copse 
 Hill. The letter contained a brief reference to 
 one of Simms's characteristic acts of generosity, 
 which deserves recording. " I was fortunate 
 enough to procure for him [Timrod] one hundred 
 and fifteen dollars, which is eked out to him weekly 
 at twenty dollars per week. When that goes, God 
 knows what the poor fellow will do, as, in truth, 
 people here are almost as destitute as himself. 
 We have here [at his daughter's house] three fam 
 ilies rolled into one, numbering about sixteen, 
 say ten grown and the rest children, and about 
 thirty dollars per week is what we have to live 
 upon. I need not tell you what prices are." 
 Simms does not tell Hayne how much trouble it 
 cost him to raise the money for Timrod; but I have 
 been informed, in a letter from Mr. Samuel Lord, 
 that he spent days in getting it. And this while 
 he himself needed to husband all his time and 
 strength. 
 
 In a subsequent letter he gave his friend Bockie 
 a brief description of Charleston's chief trouble. 
 "Things grow worse and worse with us daily, and 
 your Yankee preachers are stirring up the vani 
 ties of the negro to such a degree as to keep him 
 from work, and prompt him to aspire to supreme 
 possession of the country. His insolence increases 
 day by day, and your military governors are stim 
 ulating it by a studious effort to degrade the whites
 
 302 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 in all possible ways." Then he adds a few words 
 as to his personal discomforts: "I am compelled 
 to share my room, in which I sleep, work, write, 
 study, with my two sons, Gilmore and Govan. I 
 am accordingly cabined, cribbed, confined, I, 
 who had such ample range before, with a dozen 
 rooms, and a house range for walking in bad 
 weather of a hundred and thirty -four feet. I am 
 drudging, as a matter of course." 
 
 But he had his consolation in the work of dis 
 tributing the three hundred and fifteen dollars that 
 had been sent by his friend Mr. Ferris for the re 
 lief of the Charleston poor, and he was very proud 
 to write back that he had supplied for several 
 weeks the necessities of twelve families, containing 
 some forty-five persons. He was also busy corre 
 sponding with brother Masons, and distributing 
 the money sent in response to his appeals. Then, 
 too, he had his own work to look after, especially 
 the contemplated sale of such of his revolutionary 
 documents as had escaped his two fires. For years 
 he had been collecting every letter and paper he 
 could find that bore upon the Revolution or upon 
 South Carolina history, and he still had enough 
 left to make it worth his while to sell them, now 
 that he needed money. It doubtless hurt him to 
 part with them, but there was no reason why he 
 should be more fortunate than his old friend Tefft, 
 of Savannah, whose magnificent collection of auto 
 graphs was also for sale. So he secured the ser 
 vices of Duyckinck and Bockie, and eventually sold
 
 LAST YEARS. 303 
 
 his papers to the Long Island Historical Society, 
 in whose custody they still remain. Before he 
 parted with them, however, he prepared a mono 
 graph, entitled "Memoir and Correspondence of 
 Colonel John Laurens," which was published as 
 the seventh number of the "Bradford Club Series." 
 Another piece of work on which he was engaged 
 at this time was a revised "Mother Goose," which 
 was offered to a New York firm, but was respect 
 fully declined. It still exists in manuscript, and 
 one who glances over it can only feel that the pub 
 lishers were not particularly hard-hearted in re 
 jecting it. One knows not whether to smile or 
 sigh at the thought of the old man cudgeling his 
 brains in order to improve on " Hey diddle diddle, 
 the cat and the fiddle." But it was one of Simms's 
 failings to think that he could do everything, and 
 one is not surprised to find him, a few months 
 later, writing a play, in four days, for a third-rate 
 actor named Bailey, who was going to astonish the 
 Southern public by a series of plays written by 
 native authors and presented by eminent and pre 
 sumably native actors. Nor is one surprised to 
 find Bailey declaring Simms's drama a fine one, 
 but regretting his inability to put it on the boards 
 just now. It is rather amusing to learn that Simms 
 was induced to write this play by one of his female 
 admirers, a certain fair authoress of North Caro 
 lina, who was so alarmed for the morals of New 
 York city that she submitted to the managers of 
 the "Black Crook" a perfectly proper spectacular
 
 304 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 drama to be acted in its stead. Of such may be 
 the kingdom of heaven, but hardly the great Amer 
 ican drama, for which some people are looking as 
 anxiously as others are for the great American 
 novel. 
 
 In the latter part of June, Simms again went 
 North, partly on his own business, partly to secure 
 Masonic aid for his struggling friends. On July 
 2, he got a characteristic note from Lawson, ask 
 ing why an impecunious Southerner should insist 
 on paying five dollars a day at the New York hotel 
 when good, cheap board could be had at Yonkers, 
 where he, Lawson, was spending the summer. 
 Simms took the hint and paid his friend a short 
 visit. He had his daughter, Mary Lawson, along 
 with him, and the two were rather oppressed by the 
 invitations they received from friends old and new. 
 They paid flying visits to Great Barrington, where 
 Simms revived old memories, and to Boston, where 
 he met a new friend who had been previously 
 known only through an extensive correspondence. 
 This was Mr. Arthur W. Austin, a stanch opponent 
 of abolitionism, who shortly after the war began 
 to write long letters to Simms on political subjects, 
 and what was better to send him many delica 
 cies like good old port, that could not be easily ob 
 tained in Charleston during the days of reconstruc 
 tion. While visiting Mr. Austin, Simms fell into 
 the hands of some Masonic friends, who trudged 
 him around the streets under an August sun, and 
 so exposed him to an attack of ague. He had the
 
 LAST YEARS. 305 
 
 consolation, however, of knowing that he had been 
 an object of public curiosity, and that not a few 
 people had taken him for "Semmes the Pirate." 
 
 But in spite of sickness and constant traveling 
 he was compelled to keep busy with his pen. His 
 correspondents were pressing for replies, and their 
 letters were not as a rule so humorous as the one in 
 which Hayne described how he had been recently 
 warned by an anonymous note from Richmond 
 never to venture to put his foot in that city again, 
 and all because he had published a poem in which 
 he had spoken more mildly of the Union cause 
 than the anonymous writer thought proper. There 
 is a grim humor, however, to be found in the nu 
 merous letters written him by Southern publishers. 
 They are full of compliments to the "Nestor of 
 Southern literature " and of requests that he will 
 become a regular contributor to the columns of 
 a new journal which is certain to be successful. 
 Simms was frequently seduced into making engage 
 ments, and he kept his part of the bargain; but 
 the publishers did not keep theirs, a peculiarity 
 on the part of Southern publishers which Simms, 
 Hayne, and Cooke were in the habit of alluding to 
 in their letters of this period. Had the poor fel 
 lows got all the money due them from the publish 
 ers of the mushroom papers that sprang up in the 
 South after the war, their circumstances would 
 have been fairly comfortable. As it was, they con 
 gratulated themselves when they got a dollar from 
 such sources. Perhaps they thought it the part of
 
 306 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 patriotism to continue writing for these pretentious 
 and short-lived journals ; perhaps, like most good 
 old Southerners, they were slow to learn that a 
 man's word is not always as good as his bond; 
 perhaps they thought that the sanguine publishers 
 would really pay if they could so they wrote on 
 with a patience and faith that excite our admira 
 tion. 
 
 Toward the last of September Simms went South 
 again ; at least he is found at that time among his 
 favorite North Carolina mountains, shooting deer, 
 listening to hunters' yarns, making notes on the 
 proper construction of bear-traps, in a word, 
 gathering materials for other stories with his cus 
 tomary care. On his arrival in Charleston he 
 heard the sad news of Timrod's death, and im 
 mediately set to work to write a sketch of him for 
 a Baltimore weekly, "Southern Society," and to 
 raise money for the family left in such destitution. 
 The letters he had received from Timrod during 
 the months preceding the latter 's decease are too 
 harrowing to bear quotation. The evils inflicted 
 by poverty were bad enough, but the consciousness 
 that he was dying by inches, and the suffering oc 
 casioned by a severe and, perhaps, carelessly per 
 formed, operation, had rendered the last year of 
 the young poet's life simply unendurable. And 
 yet in the midst of his sufferings he had contrived 
 to write the exquisite poem that will ever preserve 
 his name, the memorial ode to which attention 
 has already been called.
 
 LAST YEAES. 307 
 
 But scarcely had Simms's correspondence with 
 Timrod terminated, before he began to write fre 
 quent letters to another poet, this time a Northern 
 one, George H. Boker. Simms had written a re 
 view for the "Courier" of S. Adams Lee's "Book 
 of the Sonnet," and had taken occasion to claim 
 a high position for Boker as a poet. The latter 
 wrote expressing his astonishment that he should 
 at last get some justice done him and that, too, 
 at the hands of a Southerner. He declared that 
 Simms's words had filled him with fresh hope, and 
 added that he would be glad to send his kind critic 
 other volumes of his poetry, including his "Poems 
 of the War, "unless, indeed, the views expressed in 
 the latter work would shock Simms too much. 
 Like the sensible man he was, Simms told him to 
 send his verses by all means, no matter what senti 
 ments they contained. Then followed a brisk cor 
 respondence in which the two men expressed their 
 views of poetry as an art, and, it would seem, for 
 only Boker 's letters have been read, related some 
 of the difficulties under which they had labored. 
 
 Boker confessed that, like Simms, he had pub 
 lished simply to put himself on record. The in 
 difference of Charleston to Simms was paralleled 
 by that of Philadelphia towards himself. When, 
 on November 3, he wished to send Simms copies of 
 "Plays and Poems" and "Poems of the War," 
 Lippincott's messenger went over the whole city 
 and failed to find a copy of either. But Boker 
 did more than complain and say uncomplimentary
 
 308 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 things of New England, for he does not seem to 
 have had much more love for that section than 
 Simms had, or than another Pennsylvanian, Sena 
 tor William Maclay, had had nearly a hundred 
 years before, he got Simms to write for the new 
 magazine which Lippincott was about to start as a 
 rival to the "Atlantic Monthly." Certainly one 
 much needed draft from this source found its way 
 to our author's pocketbook. It is refreshing to 
 find him getting good money occasionally for the 
 work which was surely but slowly undermining his 
 constitution. 
 
 The year closed much as it had begun. Poverty 
 was still grinding the South down and Simms was 
 still working more for other people than for him 
 self. He got his friend Austin to send him the 
 few copies of the 1860 edition of Timrod's poems, 
 still remaining in the hands of Ticknor and Fields, 
 and sold them for the benefit of the poet's family. 
 He did what he could to comfort his daughter 
 Chevillette, Mrs. Howe, for the death of her first 
 son. He lent encouragement to his son Gilmore, 
 who had just been admitted to the bar. He wrote 
 lovingly to Bruns, who was despondent over the hor 
 rors of negro rule in New Orleans, and the diffi 
 culty a gentleman had in making both ends meet. 
 But he still kept before him the possible necessity 
 of a removal to some place in Maryland or New 
 Jersey, where he could work in peace. A letter 
 from Bruns, however, recalling the merry time the 
 writer and Simms and Hayne and Jamison had
 
 LAST YEARS. 309 
 
 had at Woodlands, on New Year's night, 1859, 
 must have made the thought of ever leaving Caro 
 lina almost intolerable. 
 
 The new year, 1868, opened with an endeavor 
 to render Woodlands habitable once more, if not 
 profitable. It was not possible to rebuild on the 
 ample scale of the old house, but Simms thought 
 he saw his way clear to erecting a comfortable 
 frame dwelling which would shelter his declining 
 years. But carpenters were hard to get and lum 
 ber was for a long time unobtainable. It had to 
 be brought to the place on rafts ; and just when the 
 rafts were expected, the Edisto would be carried 
 out of its banks by a freshet. Still the work was 
 persevered in, and by July, Simms could give his 
 friend Ferris an account of the hunting and fishing 
 he was having, as well as of the difficulty of getting 
 the carpenters out of the house. He could com 
 plain, too, that his building had cost him twice as 
 much as he had expected, and that he was almost 
 penniless. In addition to the robberies committed 
 by the negroes, he had had to submit to conduct on 
 the part of publishers which, if given a less harsh 
 name, was even more trying. One contract which 
 was to pay him six hundred dollars, and for which 
 he had written seven hundred pages of manuscript, 
 failed him just at the time his house building had 
 to be paid for. So he left for New York to make 
 fresh contracts in no very cheerful frame of mind. 
 Death, too, had not spared him this year, for in
 
 310 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 February a favorite grandchild, a daughter of Mrs. 
 Roach, had died while he was still living in 
 Charleston. But through it all he had worked 
 away on a new story, entitled "Voltmeier," the 
 scene of which was laid in North Carolina, where, 
 it will be remembered, he had hunted in the pre 
 ceding autumn. He had even dreamed of becom 
 ing a professional lecturer once more, and had de 
 livered one lecture in Charlotte, North Carolina, 
 which had been warmly applauded. 
 
 At midsummer he made his Northern trip some 
 what more profitable than had been usual with him 
 of late years. He entered into contracts for three 
 stories to appear serially during the next year, and, 
 as he had only one on hand and that not completed, 
 he hastened back to Woodlands and set to work 
 with a desperate energy that was destined to wreck 
 his health and shorten his life. He wrote to Fer 
 ris, on November 21, that he had written six hun 
 dred pages of manuscript since his return, and that 
 he was keeping two stories going at once. Besides 
 this he was annotating some of Shakespeare's plays, 
 whether for publication or for Ferris 's private de 
 lectation does not appear. He was also collecting 
 and sending to Ferris, who was fond of autographs,- 
 all of the important letters he had saved from his 
 correspondence. It is needless to say that from 
 his biographer's point of view he could hardly have 
 busied himself more usefully than with this last- 
 mentioned labor. 
 
 With the exception of an occasional visit tc
 
 LAST TEARS. 311 
 
 Charleston, the next nine months were spent by 
 Simms at Woodlands, with the respite of scarcely 
 a single day from hard and grinding labor. A let 
 ter to Hayne, written probably in February, 1869, 
 gives a pathetic account of the way he was spend 
 ing his time and strength. After saying that he 
 has recently had a spell of illness, and after con 
 gratulating Hayne on the fact that the latter is able 
 to support himself on the money his verses bring 
 him, Simms writes : " I am living quite obscurely, 
 whether at home or abroad, and you will seldom see 
 my name hackneyed in the papers. I do not now 
 write for fame or notoriety or the love of it, but 
 simply to procure the wherewithal of life for my 
 children ; and this is a toil require [requiring] con 
 stant labor. My recent illness is simply the con 
 sequence of a continued strain upon the brain for 
 four months, without the interval of a single day. 
 In that time I wrote near two thousand pages note 
 paper of manuscript on two works, to say nothing of 
 an immense correspondence and numerous asides at 
 the calls of friends, etc. I am still suffering very 
 much from debility and the usual concomitants 
 of student life. ... I write you now only by an 
 assertion of dogged will." 
 
 Then he goes on to give particulars about his 
 work : " Year before last I wrote a Revolutionary 
 romance for the ' Old Guard ' magazine, called 
 ' Joscelyn. ' . . . This year I have been writing for 
 the same work a story called ' The Cub of the Pan 
 ther, ' which will be completed in seven or eight num-
 
 312 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 bers. Half a dozen are already written. I have also 
 written, between last spring and last Christmas, a 
 romance of the mountains, called ' Voltmeier, or the 
 Mountain Robber,' which is now in course of pub 
 lication in the 'Western World.' This is a long 
 story, making some thirteen hundred pages note 
 paper closely written. I am brooding now over a 
 third work of length, for which I have a contract, 
 and should have had a good deal of it ready by this 
 time, but for my illness. Voila tout! I write 
 [or wrote], by the way, for two Baltimore journals, 
 from neither of which have I got any pay. I have 
 balances due by both, which I fear I shall never get 
 a cent of." The condition of Woodlands is then 
 briefly alluded to: "I am again, as you see, at 
 Woodlands. I have rebuilt one wing of my house, 
 a little cottage of only four rooms on the old foun 
 dation. I tried to do six rooms, but my money 
 failed me. Gilmore and my son-in-law, Major 
 Howe, are farming here on a small scale. ... I 
 arrived in Charleston, from New York, the 20th 
 of October last, spent one day in the city, and then 
 came on to the plantation, which I have not left one 
 day since. To-day I am expecting guests from the 
 North. But for these and other visitors preceding 
 them, I would have gone for a week to Charleston, 
 in the hope of benefit from change." 
 
 In July he did go to Charleston, and then to New 
 York and Boston. It was the last time he was to 
 visit his old friend Lawson and his new friend Aus 
 tin. But he was sick and depressed, had little
 
 LAST YEARS. 313 
 
 money, and found the publishers reluctant to ad 
 vance more. He returned to Woodlands early in 
 the fall, and after some desultory work resolved 
 with the new year to take up his permanent abode 
 with Mrs. Roach, in Charleston, where he could be 
 sure of the nursing he needed. Before his removal, 
 he wrote a long letter to Hayne, December 22, 
 giving an account of his condition: "For my part, 
 and for the last six months, I have been literally 
 hors de combat from overwork of the brain, 
 brain sweat, as Ben Jonson called it, and no body 
 sweat, no physical exercise. In the extremity of my 
 need, I took contracts . . . for no less than three 
 romances, all to be worked at the same time. I 
 got advances of money on each of these books, and 
 the sense of obligation pressing upon me, I went 
 rigidly to work, concentrating myself at the desk 
 from 20th October, 1868, to the 1st of July, 1869, 
 nearly nine months without walking a mile in a 
 week, riding but twice, and absent from work but 
 half a day on each of these occasions. The conse 
 quence was that I finished two of the books and 
 broke down on the third, having written during 
 this period some three thousand pages of the mea 
 sure of these which I now write to you " [large note]. 
 He then goes on to say that he has written a few 
 pieces for a new magazine that has been started in 
 Charleston, the "Nineteenth Century." It does 
 not pay, but still he wants the South to have an 
 organ. Poor fellow ! as if the Reverend Mr. Hicks 
 could give it an "organ " when he himself had tried
 
 314 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 repeatedly and failed; as if "organs" were needed 
 in those dreadful days when what was wanted was 
 not sentimental gush or vain vindictive howlings, 
 but the energy and faith he had always shown, and 
 which, sooth to say, were to become virtues of that 
 new South which he was not to be permitted to see 
 and rejoice over. 
 
 So he went to Charleston, declaring that he had 
 few objects now in life save to see his children 
 happy. Only six had been left him of fifteen, and 
 of his six grandchildren, three had died. He had 
 fought a good fight, and was weary, but still he 
 prayed that he might die with harness on his back. 
 No lean and slippered pantaloon for him, so he 
 wrote Hayne ; he would rather die now than drift 
 into helpless imbecility. And he feels that he 
 ought still to support himself, and yet he can make 
 little or no money. It was a boon when on De 
 cember 1, 1869, he was invited to write a prologue 
 for the opening of the new Academy of Music in 
 Charleston. A flash of his old strength shot 
 through him and he wrote some vigorous couplets, 
 for which he received thirty dollars from the man 
 agers and five and twenty as a compliment, from 
 some unknown source. 
 
 Before an account is given of the last months 
 of this active and heroic life, a few words must be 
 said about the three romances which had been pub 
 lished as serials in 1869. "The Cub of the Pan 
 ther: a Mountain Legend," or, as Simms subse 
 quently put it, " A Hunter Legend of the Old North
 
 LAST YEARS. 315 
 
 State," ran through the year in the "Old Guard," 
 and deserves only one comment. It shows plainly 
 that Simms was beginning to realize that the day 
 of the romancer was over, and that that of the 
 realist was dawning. He did his best in the early 
 chapters, and indeed throughout the story, to give 
 a plain description of the life of a peculiar moun 
 tain people. He did not succeed, as a matter of 
 course, in cutting himself loose from his earlier 
 methods of composition, nor did he succeed, as some 
 later writers have done, in making a minute and at 
 the same time charming study of the primitive peo 
 ple among whom the scene of his story was laid. 
 But he did his best, and while doing it, showed that 
 his mind had by no means crystallized. 
 
 The second romance, "Voltmeier, or the Moun 
 tain Men: a Tale of the Old North State," ran for 
 several months in a New Yo"rk sensational weekly. 
 In this, too, especially in the early chapters, Simms 
 endeavored to lay aside the stately robes of the ro 
 mancer, but he soon fell into his old ways and 
 wrote an exciting story after the style of "Border 
 Beagles." There is the usual plotting and coun 
 terplotting, the mystery, intrigue, and adventure, 
 familiar to readers of sensational stories, and the 
 wonder is how a man in Simms's condition could 
 have written it all. The name of the third story, 
 on which he broke down, is not known, but he seems 
 to have partially kept his contract by letting George 
 Munro republish in his "Fireside Companion," 
 under the title of "The Island Bride," the novel-
 
 316 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 ette issued twenty -five years before as "Helen 
 Halsey." 
 
 Such were the last romances of the man who had 
 once been considered Cooper's not unsuccessful 
 rival. Through no fault of his own he had been 
 driven to become a mere penny-a-liner to fourth- 
 rate publications. When "Guy Rivers " was pub 
 lished, he was able to declare that it should pass 
 through no reader's hands. There is now among 
 his papers a bundle of manuscript, a story evi 
 dently written during or after the war, on which 
 the rather curt comments of a reader, advising 
 against publication, are still to be read. But the 
 change of fortune that had come to him is too piti 
 ful to dwell upon. 
 
 On the second day of the new year Simms wrote 
 to Hayne to inform him that he had reached 
 Charleston and that he was still holding out against 
 his bodily infirmities. As of old he felt that he 
 must be Hayne 's mentor and give him advice about 
 his poetry. " For myself, " he added, " nothing need 
 be said. I am rapidly passing from a stage where 
 you young men are to succeed me, doing what you 
 can. God grant that you may be more successful 
 than I have been. ... I have little money left, 
 and my last days would be cheerless in the last de 
 gree but for numerous good friends, who will 
 hardly allow me to suffer. . . . But I am weary, 
 Paul, and having much to say, I must say no 
 more; but with love to all, God be with you in
 
 LAST YEARS. 317 
 
 mercy." On March 26, he wrote Hayne that he 
 had made a short trip to Woodlands, and had 
 seemed at first to improve, but that at the end of 
 his stay another acute attack (probably some kidney 
 trouble) had come on. He was now slowly im 
 proving, but since his return to the city had been 
 out of the house but once, and then only for an 
 hour. He was almost too feeble to quit his sofa. 
 He added that he had been told that the " Cosmo 
 politan," which was publishing a story of his, had 
 been abandoned by its editor. The story was 
 unfinished, and he had written to try to get his 
 manuscript back, but had failed. Would Hayne 
 please try his hand upon the neglectful editor ? 1 
 
 But though so feeble, Simms kept valiantly to his 
 determination to die in harness. He wrote edito 
 rials for the "Courier," among them one commem 
 orating the death of his old friend Richard Yeadon. 
 He could hardly have helped feeling that his own 
 time was drawing near, and that soon one of his 
 friends would be performing a similar service for 
 him. Almost his last appearance in public was on 
 May 3, when he delivered the opening address at 
 the Floral Fair held by the Charleston County 
 Agricultural and Horticultural Association. It 
 was fitting in more ways than one that he should 
 have been asked to deliver this address, for he had 
 always been a lover of flowers, and it was a feeble 
 sign that the people of Charleston were at last be- 
 
 1 What the name of the story -was, or where the Cosmopolitan 
 was published are matters about which I am in the dark.
 
 318 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 ginning to appreciate his worth. The address, 
 which was entitled "The Sense of the Beautiful," 
 was printed in the "Courier" and warmly praised, 
 too warmly for its intrinsic merits, but not too 
 warmly for its author's services to his State and 
 city. It showed that Simms's mind was in his 
 latter days turning often toward the ideal, and en 
 deavoring to find in the consciousness that he had 
 always loved the true and the beautiful a solace for 
 his present disappointments, for the "brute and 
 baboon and barbarous days," in which he avowed 
 that he and his hearers were living. 
 
 On June 2, he wrote his last letter to Hayne, de 
 scribing himself as having suffered from "a long 
 and exhausting malady," and as "worn to such 
 diminutive proportions " that his friends would no 
 longer recognize him. On June 6, his illness, 
 which seems to have been a complete physical 
 breakdown combined with kidney and stomachic 
 troubles, took an alarming turn. By Thursday 
 night, June 9, all hope was given up, but he lin 
 gered on until Saturday, the llth, when he died 
 at five o'clock in the afternoon. He was conscious 
 to the last, and he seemed to die peacefully, as if 
 glad to be at rest. His children and friends were 
 around him, and every comfort had been supplied 
 him during his illness. One of the last persons to 
 talk with him was his old friend the Reverend James 
 W. Miles, who, almost as feeble as himself, had 
 left a sick bed in order to come to his side. 
 
 When the news of his death reached the public,
 
 LAST TEARS. 319 
 
 the bell of St. Michael's was tolled and expressions 
 of sincere grief were heard on all hands. Charles 
 ton in her adversity was slowly becoming conscious 
 of how cruelly she had treated her ablest son. The 
 "Courier" of Monday was in mourning, and con 
 tained an appreciative editorial upon him from the 
 pen of Dr. Porcher. The funeral took place on 
 Monday, at five o'clock in the afternoon, from St. 
 Paul's Church. The church was thronged, in spite 
 of the threatening weather. A heavy rain came up 
 just as the coffin reached the building, where it was 
 met by the two officiating clergymen, the Reverend 
 J. W. Miles and the Eeverend C. C. Pinckney. 
 Nor did the rain prevent a large number of those 
 present at the church from following the body to 
 that Magnolia Cemetery, at the consecration of 
 which Simms had read a poem twenty-one years 
 before. There the worn-out body was committed 
 to a grave in a corner of a plat that had been set 
 aside for the erection of a monument to John C. 
 Calhoun. 
 
 The country at large was so much occupied in 
 retrieving the losses caused by the war and in wel 
 coming the birth of a new school of fiction, that 
 the death of a romancer whose day was passed did 
 not attract any widespread attention. Still some 
 notice of the event was taken by the press, and the 
 animus of the opinions expressed was generally 
 favorable. But as the years have rolled by, the 
 man and his work have been more and more for-
 
 320 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 gotten. It is true that his romances have been 
 kept before the public in a cheap form, and have 
 been popular with boys, at least with Southern 
 boys. But a great many well-informed Southern 
 men and women have never heard of Simms, and 
 others are apt to make the mistake made by the 
 curious Boston populace and confound him with 
 "Semmes the Pirate." It may be doubted whether 
 many Northern readers of culture open his romances, 
 although they may be familiar with his name from 
 references made to it in histories of American lit 
 erature. It is true that two years ago an appreci 
 ative article treating of his revolutionary romances 
 appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly," but it was 
 doubtless something of a revelation to many of the 
 readers of that magazine. As a rule the meagre 
 references that have been made to him in text 
 books and elsewhere have been somewhat deprecia 
 tory, without any very clear reason being given for 
 the depreciation. 
 
 If his name has been thus eclipsed in America, 
 it is no matter of surprise to learn that it is hardly 
 known in England. It is a little strange, however, 
 to be assured, as I have been, 1 that two such widely 
 differing personages as Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. 
 Martin Farquhar Tupper should have expressed a 
 warm admiration for Simms 's romances. It is also 
 pleasant to find an anonymous writer, in the " Lon 
 don Quarterly Review " for January, 1885, in the 
 
 1 By General James Grant Wilson and by the late Mr. Tupper 
 of Charleston, a cousin of the English author.
 
 LAST YEARS. 321 
 
 course of an article on American novels, doing 
 Simms the justice to declare that he was an author 
 whose works were far less known in England than 
 they should be, "but who produced numerous pow 
 erful sketches of genuine American incident," 
 sketches which "are much better worth reading than 
 many of the novels which have made fame and 
 fortune for inferior writers." The same critic con 
 cluded his notice by saying: "The United States 
 have thus far produced few imaginative writers of 
 greater desert than Simms in his particular line." 
 
 But we have left South Carolina and the year 
 1870 somewhat far afield, and must return to them 
 for a moment. Perhaps the sincerest mourner 
 among all the old novelist's friends was Paul 
 Hayne. On July 9, he wrote as follows to Dr. 
 Porcher : 
 
 "Behold, also, how our old circle of ancient 
 friends and comrades is thinning! One by one 
 they have quitted our sides, until at length old 
 Simms himself, whom I had got into the habit of 
 regarding as immortal, has finished his course, and 
 said his final farewells! . . . Gallant old man! 
 whatever his faults, I, for one, loved him with all 
 my heart! And there is no doubt that his time 
 had/w% come. He had fought a good fight and 
 kept the faith, at least the faith he had plighted to 
 his own genius and will. 
 
 "Yet, as Pierpont says of his deceased child, 
 'I cannot make him dead! ' So much vitality was 
 there in the man, so vivid is his image before the
 
 322 WILLIAM GILMOEE SIMMS. 
 
 'mind's eye,' that all attempts at a realization of 
 his death utterly fail! . . . Simms's genius never 
 had fair play f Circumstances hampered him! 
 Thus, the man was greater than his works." 
 
 In a letter to the same gentleman, of August 4, 
 he expressed himself freely as to the merits and de 
 merits of Simms's work : 
 
 "A really great author (whether in prose or 
 verse) Simms emphatically was not, and there is 
 no use in maintaining so fulsome a proposition. 
 But his talents were splendid, and his whole life 
 seems to me noble, because of the 'grit,' the perse 
 verance, the indomitable energy which it displayed. 
 
 "I 've not the remotest idea that his works will 
 endure. They were too carelessly written. They 
 lack the ' labor limce' to. an extent which is dis 
 tressing. Nevertheless Simms is worthy of all 
 honor. ' God rest his soul. ' ' 
 
 While Hayne, whose own sense of the necessity 
 of artistic training had grown wonderfully during 
 his residence among the Georgia pines, was writing 
 thus of his comrade's memory, steps were being 
 taken in Charleston to perpetuate that memory in 
 an enduring fashion. About two weeks after his 
 death, a meeting of Simms's friends discussed the 
 propriety of raising a monument to him as soon as 
 possible. Committees were appointed and speeches 
 were made, but the times were still too hard for an 
 undertaking of the kind to succeed. After some 
 
 1 Through a regrettable mistake, this letter was used without 
 the knowledge of Mr. Hayne's descendants.
 
 LAST YEARS. 323 
 
 years and various meetings, however, enough money 
 was raised to warrant the committee's engaging 
 J. Q. A. Ward to prepare a bronze bust of the ro 
 mancer, which it was proposed to erect on the Bat 
 tery. Simms had once been heard to express a wish 
 that he should have no other memorial than a sim 
 ple shaft of South Carolina granite broken at the 
 top. But the committee preferred the bust, and, 
 after it had been inspected and approved by some 
 of Simms's Northern friends, Bryant, Lawson, 
 Bockie, and others, it was mounted on a pedestal 
 of native granite, and was duly unveiled, with ap 
 propriate ceremonies, on the eighth anniversary of 
 his death, June 11, 1879. At. the time of its erec 
 tion it was the only memorial of the kind in Charles 
 ton, the Powers statue of Calhoun, in the city hall, 
 having been destroyed during the war, and the twig 
 planted in the centre of the city-hall park, to mark 
 the site of a proposed monument to Robert Y. 
 Hayne, having grown to a tree. There is still no 
 thing to mark the spot where the remains of the 
 noble old man lie, save the name "Simms" carved 
 on the granite curbing that marks off the family 
 section. This should not be. Charleston owes 
 it to herself to do what she can to atone for the 
 long years of neglect which were all the reward she 
 gave to her devoted son during his lifetime. His 
 wish should be carried out, and on the broken shaft 
 should be carved the epitaph which he composed 
 for himself: "Here lies one who, after a reason 
 ably long life, distinguished chiefly by unceasing
 
 324 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 labors, has left all his better works undone." And 
 to these sad words should be added some expression 
 of regret by his people for their long neglect, and 
 of belief that the work he did and the example he 
 set can never wholly die. 
 
 Our task is well-nigh ended. It only remains to 
 endeavor to summarize briefly the chief personal 
 characteristics of the man whose career has been 
 the subject of these pages, and to estimate the value 
 of the work he accomplished. It is to be hoped 
 that on both of these points enough has been given 
 to enable the reader to form his own conclusions ; 
 but it is always to be expected that the biographer 
 who has made a special study of a man and his 
 writings should record his own conclusions in a 
 compact and intelligible way. And first of Simms 
 as a man. 
 
 From both his parents Simms inherited a san 
 guine, impulsive, and impressible temperament. 
 It would seem that the father's traits were more 
 strongly impressed upon the son than the mother's; 
 for there was little in Simms 's nature that was 
 feminine. The most obvious effects of the father's 
 roving nature and passion for adventure have been 
 noted already ; but it should be remarked that to 
 this source is possibly due much of the intellectual 
 restlessness which drove Simms from one style of 
 composition to another, and which never let him 
 rest long enough to polish and perfect his work. 
 It is true that he always gave as an excuse for his
 
 LAST YEARS. 325 
 
 hurried manner of writing the necessity he was 
 under of earning his daily subsistence ; but it would 
 seem that the cause of his unartistic methods of 
 work lay deeper in his own inherited temperament. 
 Nor should we forget in this connection the ef 
 fects upon him of the turmoil and struggle of his 
 early years, of the humiliating treatment he under 
 went at the hands of a cold and unsympathetic 
 aristocracy, and finally of the general tone of 
 good-natured vulgarity and conceited ignorance so 
 characteristic of America during the earlier years 
 of this century. All these influences affected his 
 character as much as they did his literary work. 
 They made him dogmatic, opinionated, eccentric, 
 capable at one time of doing great things and at 
 another of doing something unexpectedly foolish. 
 To adopt Mr. Matthew Arnold's terminology, they 
 made him oftentimes appear to be a mere Philistine, 
 when in reality the whole of his life was given up 
 to the endeavor to make himself a man of culture, 
 permeated with "sweetness and light." A barba 
 rian he could not be, since he was not ah aristocrat 
 by birth. Perhaps there has never been a man 
 whose development was so sadly hampered by his 
 environment; and that he succeeded as far as he 
 did in escaping from the effects of his environment 
 should move our admiration and respect. 
 
 It is needless to dwell upon the native kindness 
 of heart, the buoyant spirits, the superb physical 
 and moral energy of the man, for these have been 
 fully set forth already. Though at times seem-
 
 326 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 ingly eaten up with self-conceit, he was never either 
 really conceited or selfish. He was never ashamed 
 to acknowledge his own deficiencies ; never so busy 
 with his own affairs as to turn a deaf ear to a call 
 for help or sympathy. The amount of good he did 
 in his last feeble years cannot be calculated. 
 Those who saw his eccentricities only, laughed at 
 him; those who knew him well, loved him more 
 and more until their love almost grew to reverence. 
 If he often did a foolish action, he never did a 
 mean one ; and though not symmetrically great, he 
 was essentially noble. He had virtues, too, not 
 specially common in his time and section. While 
 fond of stimulants and excitement, he refrained 
 always from intoxication ; while fond of the story 
 that is told to men only, he was irreproachable in 
 his private morals. In religious matters he was 
 often charged with infidelity, but the charge cannot 
 be sustained. Although he never joined a church, 
 and although he held opinions which most people 
 would pronounce unorthodox, there is every reason 
 to conclude that he believed in the essential inspi 
 ration of Christianity. If this be not so, then he 
 was far less radical in his unbelief than might have 
 been expected from a knowledge of his character. 
 On the whole, one forms the impression that Simms 
 was a vigorous, hearty man, with a versatile and 
 talented mind, a very large heart, an indomitable 
 will, and keen if not always delicate, sensibilities. 
 His weaknesses and eccentricities were partly due 
 to inherited tendencies, partly to environment, but,
 
 LAST YEARS. 327 
 
 though they marred the symmetry of his character, 
 they nevertheless could not efface the strength and 
 loveableness of his personality. 
 
 There is little reason to differ from Hayne with 
 regard to the quality of Simms's literary work. 
 "A really great author," he "emphatically was 
 not; " a talented author he undoubtedly was. His 
 failure in poetry was marked because the unfavor 
 able influences of his environment, combined with 
 the unfavorable characteristics of his inherited tem 
 perament, naturally showed to their fullest effect 
 in that region of art where individual peculiarities 
 are least tolerable. It has been shown already how 
 impossible it was that the ante-bellum South should 
 produce a great artist in verse; and Simms's fail 
 ure is rendered all the more conspicuous from the 
 fact that he endeavored to excel in forms of poetry 
 that require the highest artistic skill. But even if 
 he had written poetry, it would still have been Eng 
 lish poetry, which would not have suited his patri 
 otic American heart. So after all there is no great 
 reason to be sorry for the fate of his verses. Yet it 
 should not be forgotten that his poetry was a great 
 solace to him, and that it lifted him above this earth 
 and its cares, and that as no one need read it who 
 does not wish to, no one is any the worse for it. 
 
 With regard to his prose, attention must be con 
 fined to his revolutionary and colonial romances. 
 If the quality of permanence is to be found in his 
 work, it is to be found here. His miscellaneous 
 critical, political, and biographical work has served
 
 328 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 its transitory purpose and is already forgotten. His 
 historical work will be consulted occasionally by 
 special students, but is of little general value. It 
 is of far more value, to the Southerner at least, to 
 know that Simms never ceased to bewail the indif 
 ference of his people to their own history, and that 
 he never failed to encourage local students like 
 Pickett and Meek of Alabama to prosecute and 
 publish their researches. When the Southern 
 people get a true history of themselves, they will 
 find that they have many things to learn and to un 
 learn ; and one of the things they will vainly wish 
 to forget will be their utter indifference to the un- 
 seconded and uncheered efforts of men like Simms, 
 to rescue the history of their State and section 
 from the dust of oblivion. 
 
 To return however to the main question : Will 
 the revolutionary and colonial romances be read, 
 say fifty years hence? The border romances are 
 omitted from consideration for the already expressed 
 reason that they should never have been written, 
 since they have nothing ennobling in them. If 
 the friends of romance are to make any firm stand 
 against the attacks of the realists, they must make 
 it right here, on the essentially ennobling qualities 
 of great romances. That the romance, in its old 
 form at least, will play again a serious part in the 
 history of literature is open to grave doubt. Lit- 
 erary forms, like nations, seem to play their parts 
 and then retire from the stage. But because no 
 Englishman will ever again write a great epic is
 
 LAST TEAKS. 329 
 
 no reason why "Paradise Lost "should cease to de 
 light us. And so, because we shall see no more 
 Scotts or Coopers is no reason why we should 
 prophesy a day of oblivion for their works. If 
 their works fill any one of the world's various 
 needs, they will be preserved in the world's mem 
 ory and regard. Yet it would seem that their 
 works ennoble all who read them in the right spirit, 
 and that therefore their works will live; for it is 
 no little thing to ennoble a man's mind and heart, 
 and it is perhaps as useful a thing to ennoble a 
 boy's mind and heart. Hence, if Scott and Cooper 
 become more and more the authors of boyhood, 
 their place will be no less honorable and secure. 
 
 But was Poe right when he ranked Simms above 
 the herd of American romancers, just after Cooper 
 and Brockden Brown, and are Simms 's best ro 
 mances ennobling? It would seem that Poe was 
 right. Cooper at his best is superior to Simms at 
 his best, and there is no need to compare them at 
 their worst. Brockden Brown, though a follower of 
 Godwin, had a narrow vein of real genius, which 
 can hardly be asserted of Simms. In versatility 
 and talents Brown was Simms 's inferior, and in 
 estimating the work of the two writers one is almost 
 inclined, in balancing quantity with quality of work 
 (a process which most critics neglect), to place the 
 two men upon the same level. Any comparison 
 with Hawthorne is of course out of the question. 
 With regard to romancers like Dr. Bird, Kennedy, 
 and Paulding, to say nothing of writers like Miss
 
 330 WILLIAM GILMOBE SIMMS. 
 
 Sedgwick or Dr. Mayo or Melville, Poe would ap- 
 pear to have stated Simms's position correctly. 
 Both with regard to quantity as well as quality of 
 work he is their superior. His style at its best is 
 not inferior to theirs, and with none of them is it 
 safe to make much question of style. He was more 
 frequently slipshod than they, but that is all that 
 can be said in their favor. In imaginative vigor, 
 in power of description, in the faculty of giving 
 movement to his stories, he leaves them behind. He 
 strikes one as being a born writer, a professional ; 
 their works read like those of amateurs. 
 
 To consider now the second question : Are his best 
 romances ennobling? In some respects it would 
 seem that they are. They deal with an eventful 
 period, when a young people was struggling for its 
 rights. They show how high and low, rich and 
 poor, were animated by a common patriotism, how 
 they suffered for the cause they espoused, how they 
 triumphed through their bravery and faith. They 
 make the reader familiar with great characters like 
 Marion, and with historic events of no little im 
 portance to a nation destined to greatness. More 
 over they are full of the freshness of swamp and 
 forest, of the languorous charm of Southern climate 
 and scenery. Then, too, they are full of the heroic 
 deeds of common, unlettered men, and are thus 
 more stimulating than many of those high-flying 
 romances in which lords and ladies undergo their 
 remarkable adventures. It is true, on the other 
 hand, that they are full of an unregulated patriot-
 
 LAST YEARS. 331 
 
 ism which regards every Tory and Englishman, with 
 a few exceptions, as a brute and a villain; that 
 they deal with bloodshed and crime ad nauseam; 
 that they are in many places commonplace and 
 dull. Still, after all is said, it would seem that 
 the balance stands in Simms's favor. He has de 
 scribed with vigor, and sometimes with charm, the 
 events of an interesting epoch; he has reproduced 
 the characteristic features of a life that is gone ; 
 he has painted a landscape, which, if it still exists, 
 has nevertheless been subject 'to many changes. 
 No one will ever do the same work as well, and it 
 was worth doing. Hence I cannot conclude with 
 Hayne that his works will die. They will never 
 be very popular, at least with older readers, but 
 boys will continue to delight in the daring deeds of 
 scout and partisan, and cultivated and curious per 
 sons will turn to them as faithful pictures of inter 
 esting epochs in their country's history. 
 
 But here, too, it must again be noted that Simms 
 was more English than he thought himself. There 
 was of course more room for originality in his es 
 says in prose fiction than in his poetry, his excur 
 sions into the realms of what Mr. Theodore Watts 
 is fond of denominating " essential art." His meth 
 ods were, however, those of his English predecessors, 
 and whenever he took his eye off his local subject he 
 wrote like an Englishman. He made constant use 
 of the stock materials of former and contemporary 
 romancers, and the comparison which more than 
 one writer has instituted between him and the Eng-
 
 332 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 lish G. P. R. James is in many respects admissible. 
 But Simms had what James had not : a small par 
 ticular field which he made his own, and that field 
 was essentially American. For this reason he will 
 live longer than James, and for this reason he de 
 serves a place among American men of letters. 
 His place is not a high one ; but it should never 
 be forgotten that he was not only a pioneer, but 
 the pioneer, of American literature, whose destiny 
 forced him to labor in the least favorable section of 
 all America for successful literary work. When his 
 environment is considered, the work he did will be 
 deemed worthy of admiration rather than of fault 
 finding. 
 
 Yes, Hayne was right. The man Simms "is 
 worthy of all honor." Whether as a literary toiler, 
 working successfully under most harassing condi 
 tions ; whether as a misguided patriot, striving for 
 what he believed to be his section's good; whether 
 as a defeated, worn-out spirit, laboring to relieve 
 the distresses of his children and his friends, the 
 man Simms ceases to be a mere man and assumes 
 proportions that are truly heroic. His State may 
 still point to her Calhouns and McDuffies, and 
 his section may point to politicians and soldiers, 
 contemporary lights that have cast and still cast 
 him in the shade; but it is doubtful whether 
 South Carolina, or indeed the whole South, has 
 produced in this century a man who will better 
 stand a close scrutiny into his motives and his life- 
 work than William Gilmore Simms.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIMMS'S WRITINGS. 
 
 LACK of space rather than of materials has neces 
 sitated the omission of many bibliographical details. 
 Every entry has been reduced " to its lowest terms ; " 
 and only such notes as appear to be indispensable have 
 been admitted. Simms was such a voluminous writer 
 that had full title pages been given, and had all his 
 known contributions to periodical literature, encyclopae 
 dias, etc., been chronicled, this appendix would have ex 
 ceeded all reasonable bounds. It is believed, however, 
 that it will be found to be freer from errors than any 
 previous attempt at a Simms bibliography, as well as 
 more complete. Of such previous attempts that of Alli- 
 bone is the best. Other bibliographies are to be found 
 in James Wood Davidson's " Living Writers of the 
 South " (1869) ; in John C. Stockbridge's " Catalogue 
 of the Harris Collection of American Poetry " (1886) ; 
 in the " International Magazine " (v. 432 f.) ; in the 
 "Literary World" (Boston, xiii. 351) ; and finally in 
 Duyckinck's and other cyclopaedias. These bibliographi 
 cal lists have been freely consulted, but the bulk of this 
 appendix is the result of individual investigation. Every 
 book (or article) mentioned, except translations and 
 such books as are marked with an asterisk, has been 
 personally examined in the first edition ; and of those
 
 334 APPENDIX. 
 
 BO marked only two (Numbers 1 and 78) have been inac 
 cessible in any form. 
 
 I. POETBY. 1 
 
 1. * Monody on General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. (Charles 
 
 ton, 1825. 16mo. [?]) Anonymous. 
 
 2. Lyrical and Other Poems. (Charleston, 1827. 18mo.) 
 
 3. Early Lays. (Charleston, 1827.) 
 
 4. The Vision of Cortes, Cain, and Other Poems. (Charleston, 
 
 1829. 16mo.) 
 
 5. * The Tri-Color, or The Three Days of Blood in Paris. With 
 
 Some Other Pieces. (Charleston, 1830. 8vo.) 
 
 6. Atalantis : a Story of the Sea. In Three Parts. (New York, 
 
 1832. 8vo.) Anonymous. 
 
 7. Southern Passages and Pictures. (New York, 1839.) 
 
 8. Donna Florida. A Tale. (Charleston, 1843. 16mo.) 
 
 9. Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies. A Collection of 
 
 Sonnets. (Richmond, 1845.) 
 
 10. Areytos, or Songs of the South. (Charleston, 1846.) 
 
 11. Charleston, and Her Satirists. A Scribblement. By a City 
 
 Bachelor. (Charleston, 1848.) A hasty satire in reply to 
 a pamphlet entitled " Charleston, a Satire," by a female 
 abolitionist of unknown name. 
 
 12. Lays of the Palmetto. (Charleston, 1848.) 
 
 13. Atalantis : a Story of the Sea. With the Eye and the Wing ; 
 
 Poems chiefly imaginative. (Philadelphia, 1848.) 
 
 14. The Cassique of Accabee ; a Tale of Ashley River. With 
 
 Other Pieces. (New York, 1849. Sq. 18mo.) 
 
 15. Sabbath Lyrics, or Songs from Scripture. A Christmas Gift 
 
 of Love. (Charleston, 1849. 8vo.) 
 
 16. The City of the Silent. (Charleston, 1850. 8vo.) Poem 
 
 delivered at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery in 
 Charleston, November 19th, 1850. 
 
 17. Poems Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary, and Contemplative. 
 
 (2 vols. New York and Charleston, 1853.) 
 
 18. Areytos, or Songs and Ballads of the South. With Other 
 
 Poems. (New York and Charleston, 1860.) Much fuller 
 than No. 10 of this list and contains most of No. 12, as 
 well as a few revised pieces from earlier volumes. 
 
 1 All titles represent 1 vol. 12mo., unless the contrary is indicated.
 
 APPENDIX. 335 
 
 Dramas. 
 
 19. * Norman Maurice : The Man of the People. An American 
 
 Drama. (Richmond, 1851. 8vo.) 
 
 20. Michael Bonham, or The Fall of Bexar. A Tale of Texas. 
 
 In Five Parts. By a Southron. (Richmond, 1852. 8vo.) 
 
 21. Benedict Arnold. A Dramatic Essay. (Richmond, the " Mag 
 
 nolia Weekly," 1863.) 
 
 Edited by Simms. 
 
 22. A Supplement to the Plays of William Shakespeare. Com 
 
 prising the Seven Dramas, etc. (New York, 1848. 8vo.) 
 
 23. War Poetry of the South. (New York, 1867.) 
 
 II. ROMANCES, NOVELETTES, AND COLLECTED STORIES. 
 24 * Martin Faber. (New York, 1833.) Anonymous. Martin 
 Faber. the Story of a Criminal ; and Other Tales. (2 vols. 
 New York, 1837.) 
 
 25. The Book of My Lady : a Melange. By a Bachelor Knight. 
 
 (Philadelphia, 1833.) 
 
 26. Guy Rivers : a Tale of Georgia. (2 vols. New York, 1834.) 
 
 27. The Yemassee : a Romance of South Carolina. (2 vols. New 
 
 York, 1835.) 
 
 28. The Partisan: a Tale of the Revolution. (2 vols. New 
 
 York, 1835.) 
 
 29. Mellichampe : a Legend of the Santee. (2 vols. New York, 
 
 1836.) 
 
 30. * Richard Hurdis, or The Avenger of Blood. A Tale of Ala 
 
 bama. (2 vols. Philadelphia, 1838.) Anonymous. 
 
 31. Carl Werner: an Imaginative Story; with Other Tales of 
 
 Imagination. (2 vols. New York, 1838.) 
 
 32. Pelayo: a Story of the Goth. (2 vols. New York, 1838.) 
 
 33. The Damsel of Darien. (2 vols. Philadelphia, 1839.) 
 
 34. Border Beagles; a Tale of Mississippi. (2 vols. Philadel 
 
 phia, 1840.) Sequel to " Richard Hurdis." 
 
 35. The Kinsmen, or The Black Riders of the Congaree. A Tale. 
 
 (2 vols. Philadelphia, 1841.) Afterwards known as " The 
 Scout." (New York, 1854.) 
 
 36. Confession, or The Blind Heart. A Domestic Story. (2 
 
 vols. Philadelphia, 1841.)
 
 336 APPENDIX. 
 
 37. Beaucharape, or The Kentucky Tragedy. A Tale of Passion. 
 
 (2 vols. Philadelphia, 1842.) 
 
 38. The Prima Donna : a Passage from City Life. (Philadelphia, 
 
 1844. 8vo.) A short story (24 pages) forming the first 
 numher of " Godey's Library of Elegant Literature." 
 
 39. Castle Dismal, or The Bachelor's Christmas. A Domestic 
 
 Legend. (New York, 1845.) 
 
 40. Helen Halsey, or The Swamp State of Conelachita. A 
 
 Tale of the Borders. (New York, 1845.) Republished as 
 "The Island Bride," in Munro's "Fireside Companion." 
 (New York, 1869.) 
 
 41. Count Julian, or The Last Days of the Goth. 'Baltimore 
 
 and New York, 1845. 8vo.) 
 
 42. The Wigwam and Cabin. (2 vols. New York, 1845-46.) 
 
 43. Flirtation at the Moultrie House, etc. (Charleston, 1850.) A 
 
 short skit (46 pages) describing, in the letters of one Miss 
 Georgiana Appleby, a ball at the Moultrie House of which 
 Simms was a manager. 
 
 44. Katharine Walton, or The Rebel of Dorchester. An Histo 
 
 rical Romance of the Revolution in South Carolina. (Phil 
 adelphia, 1851. 8vo.) 
 
 45. The Golden Christmas : a Chronicle of St. John's, Berkeley. 
 
 Compiled from the Notes of a Briefless Barrister. (Charles 
 ton, 1852.) 
 
 46. As Good as a Comedy, or The Tennesseean's Story. Sy an 
 
 Editor. (Philadelphia, 1852.) 
 
 47. *The Sword and the Distaff, or "Fair, Fat, and Forty." 
 
 (Charleston, 1852.) Afterwards known as " Woodcraft, or 
 Hawks about the Dovecote." (New York, 1854.) 
 
 48. Marie De Berniere : a Tale of the Crescent City, etc. (Phila 
 
 delphia, 1853.) Contains besides the leading tale two 
 stories, "The Maroon" and "Maize in Milk." In 1855 
 precisely the same volume was issued as " The Maroon : a 
 Legend of the Caribbees, and Other Tales." " Marie De 
 Berniere" was afterwards issued as "The Ghost of My 
 Husband : a Tale of the Crescent City." (New York, 
 1866.) 
 
 49. * Vasconselos : a Romance of the New World. (New York, 
 
 1854.) Published under the nom de plume of " Frank 
 Cooper."
 
 APPENDIX. 337 
 
 50. * Southward Ho ! a Spell of Sunshine. (New York, 1854.) 
 
 51. The Forayers, or The Raid of the Dog-Days. (New York, 
 
 1855.) 
 
 52. Charlemont, or The Pride of the Village. A Tale of Ken 
 
 tucky. (New York, 1856.) Sequel to " Beaueharape." 
 
 53. Eutaw : a Sequel to the Forayers, or The Raid of the Dog- 
 
 Days. A Tale of the Revolution. (New York, 1856.) 
 
 54. The Cassique of Kiawah : a Colonial Romance. (New York, 
 
 1859.) 
 
 55. Paddy McGann, or The Demon of the Stump. (Richmond, 
 
 the " Southern Illustrated News." 1863.) 
 
 56. Joscelyn: a Tale of the Revolution. (New York, the " Old 
 
 Guard," 1867.) 
 
 57. The Cub of the Panther : a Mountain Legend. (New York, 
 
 the "Old Guard," 1869.) 
 
 58. Voltmeier, or The Mountain Men. A Tale of the Old North 
 
 State. (New York, the " Illuminated Western World," 
 1869.) Numbers 55, 56, 57, 58, are serials which do not 
 seem to have been published in book form. 
 
 III. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 59. * Memoir of Maynard Davis Richardson in " The Remains of 
 
 Maynard Davis Richardson, with a Memoir of his Life." 
 By his Friend. (Charleston, 1833.) Simms probably 
 edited this volume. 
 
 60. * The History of South Carolina, etc. (Charleston, 1840.) 
 
 Second edition, enlarged. (Charleston, 1842.) Third edi 
 tion, much enlarged. (New York and Charleston, 1860.) 
 
 61. The Geography of South Carolina, etc. (Charleston, 1843.) 
 
 Companion volume to the foregoing. 
 
 62. The Life of Francis Marion. (New York, 1845.) 
 
 63. * The Life of Captain John Smith, the Founder of Virginia. 
 
 (New York, 1846.) 
 
 64. The Life of the Chevalier Bayard. (New York, 1847.) 
 
 65. The Life of Nathanael Greene. (New York, 1849.) 
 
 66. The Lily and the Totem, or The Huguenots in Florida. A 
 
 series of Sketches, Picturesque and Historical, of the 
 Colonies of Coligm. 1562-1570. (New York, 1850.) 
 
 67. South Carolina in the Revolutionary War. By a Southron. 
 
 (Charleston, 1853.)
 
 338 APPENDIX. 
 
 68. Memoir of Colonel John Laurens in "Memoir and Corre 
 
 spondence of Colonel John Laurens." (Bradford Club Se 
 ries, No. 1. New York, 1867. 4to and 8vo.) 
 
 IV. MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 69. Slavery in America, being a Brief Review of Miss Martineau 
 
 on that Subject. By a South Carolinian. (Richmond, 1838. 
 8vo.) Appears also as " The Morals of Slavery." Simms'a 
 contribution to "The Pro-Slavery Argument." (Charles 
 ton, 1852.) 
 
 70. The Social Principle : the True Source of National Perma 
 
 nence. (Tuscaloosa, 1843. 8vo.) Oration delivered at 
 the University of Alabama, December 13, 1842. 
 
 71. The Sources of American Independence. (Aikin, 1844. 
 
 8vo.) Oration at Aikin, S. C., July 4, 1844. 
 
 72. The Charleston Book : a Miscellany in Prose and Verse. 
 
 (Charleston, 1845.) Simms contributed a short preface and 
 edited the volume, which appeared, however, without his 
 name. 
 
 73. Views and Reviews in American Literature, History, and Fic 
 
 tion. (2 vols. New York, 1845, really copyrighted and 
 published in 1846.) 
 
 74. Self-Development. (Milledgeville, 1847. 8vo.) Oration deliv 
 
 ered November 10, 1847, at Oglethorpe University, Georgia. 
 
 75. Father Abbot, or The Home Tourist. A Medley. (Charles 
 
 ton, 1849. 18mo.) 
 
 76. Egeria, or Voices of Thought and Comfort for the Woods 
 
 and Wayside. (Philadelphia, 1853.) 
 
 77- Address at the Inauguration of the Spartanburg Female Col 
 lege. (Spartanburg, 1855.) Address delivered August 22, 
 1855. 
 
 78. * The Power of Cotton. 1 (New York, 1856. 8vo.) 
 
 79. Sack and Destruction of the City of Columbia, S. C., to which 
 
 is added a List of the Property destroyed. Originally 
 published in the " Columbia Daily Phoanix." (Columbia, 
 1865.) Anonymous. 
 
 1 Doubtful. Simms's name is written on the copy in the Boston Public 
 Library, but the handwriting is not that of Theodore Parker, to whom the 
 pamphlet originally belonged.
 
 APPENDIX. 339 
 
 80. The Sense of the Beautiful. (Charleston, 1870. 8vo.) An 
 address delivered before the Charleston County Agricul 
 tural and Horticultural Association, May 3, 1870. 
 
 V. CHIEF CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAGAZINES. 
 A by no means exhaustive search has resulted in the 
 collection of over two hundred and fifty titles of poems, 
 stories, and miscellaneous articles contributed by Simms 
 to various magazines and annuals. His contributions 
 to newspapers are even more numerous, ranging as they 
 do from a short letter as country correspondent to edi 
 torials and reviews three and four columns long. Ob 
 viously the most part of these ephemeral productions 
 should be left to oblivion, and the following list will be 
 found to relate mainly to such of his more elaborate 
 articles as were never collected in permanent form. Up 
 to 1851 Simms was in the habit of binding for his own 
 use his longer articles ; after this date his contributions, 
 at least to his own review, are to fee determined by in 
 ternal evidence only, a hazardous procedure which has 
 not been much indulged in here. 
 
 1. American Criticism and Critics. (So. Lit. Jour., July, 1836.) 
 
 2. Logoochie, or the Branch of Sweet Water. (Magnolia, annual, 
 
 1839.) 
 
 3. Early Lays. (Continued in So. Lit. Mess, for 1839-41.) 
 
 4. Queen Mary. (Dem. Rev., Feb., 1842.) 
 
 5. Bulwer's Genius and Writings. (Magnolia, Dec., 1842.) 
 
 6. The Writings of Washington Allston. (S. Q. R., Oct., 1843.) 
 
 7. The Moral Character of Hamlet. (Orion, 1844.) 
 
 8. Letters on International Copyright. (So. Lit. Mess., 1844.) 
 
 9. The New Spirit of the Age. (S. Q. R., April, 1845.) 
 
 10. A Year of Consolation. (Review of Mrs. Butler's book, S. 
 
 Q. R., July, 1847.) 
 
 11. John Rutledge. (Arner. Whig Rev., Aug. and Sept., 1847.) 
 
 12. Prescott's Conquest of Peru. (S. Q. R., Jan. and April, 1848.)
 
 340 APPENDIX. 
 
 13. Stevens's History of Georgia. (S. Q. R., April, 1848.) 
 
 14. Headley's Life of Cromwell. (S. Q. R., Oct., 1848.) 
 
 15. Modern Prose Fiction. (S. Q. R., April, 1849.) 
 
 16. Guizot's Democracy in France. (S. Q. R., April, 1849.) 
 
 17. Later Poems of Henry Taylor. (S. Q. R., July, 1849.) 
 
 18. Recent American Poets. (S. Q. R., Oct., 1849.) 
 
 19. Kennedy's Life of Wirt. (S. Q. R., April, 1850.) 
 
 20. Ellet's Women of the Revolution. (S. Q. R., July, 1850.) 
 
 21. Sentimental Prose Fiction. (S. Q. R., July, 1850.) 
 
 22. Tuckerman's Essays and Essayists. (S. Q. R., July, 1850.) 
 
 23. Summer Travel in the South. (S. Q. R., Sept., 1850.) 
 
 24. Topics in the History of South Carolina. (S. Q. R., Sept., 
 
 1850.) 
 
 25. The Southern Convention. (S. Q. R., Sept., 1850.) 
 
 26. Home Sketches, or Life along the Highways and Byways of 
 
 the South. (Continued in Literary World for 1852.) 
 
 27. Charleston, the Palmetto City. (Harper's Mag., June, 1857.) 
 
 28. The Story of Chastelard. (Lippincott's Mag., March, 1868.) 
 
 29. How Sharp Snaffles got his Capital and Wife. (Harper's 
 
 Mag., Oct., 1870.) l 
 
 The following articles, of some interest to students of 
 Southern history, may be unhesitatingly assigned to 
 Simms : 
 
 1. Pickett's History of Alabama. (S Q. R., Jan., 1852.) 
 
 2. Domestic Histories of the South. (S. Q. R., April, 1852.) 
 
 3. The Baron De Kalb. (S. Q. R., July, 1852.) 
 
 4. Literary Prospects of the South. (Russell's, June, 1858.) 
 
 5. Marion, the Carolina Partisan. (Russell's, Oct. and Nov., 1858.) 
 
 In this connection a chronological list of the various 
 publications with which Simms was editorially connected 
 will not be out of place. They are all Charleston enter 
 prises save Number 7. 
 
 1. The Southern Literary Gazette. (1828-29.) 
 
 2. The City Gazette. (1830-32.) 
 
 3. The Cosmopolitan, an Occasional. (1833.) 
 
 4. The Magnolia, or Southern Apalachian. (1842-43.) 
 
 i Reissued as "The Big Lie," in " Short Stories," May, 1891.
 
 APPENDIX. 341 
 
 j. The Southern and Western Magazine and Review. (1845.) 
 
 6. The Southern Quarterly Review. (1849-55.) 
 
 7. The Columbia Phoenix. (1865.) 
 
 8. The Daily South Carolinian. (1865-66.) 
 
 9. The Courier. (1870.) 
 
 Simms was also for many years correspondent and 
 reviewer, perhaps literary editor, of the " Mercury." 
 
 VI. ENGLISH RKPRINTS AND TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Reprints. 
 
 1. The Tri-Color, etc. (London, 1830, 8vo.) 
 
 2. Guy Rivers. (* London, 1835, 3 vols. 1841, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 3. The Yemassee. (* London, 1835, 3 vols. 1844, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 4. The Damsel of Darien. (London, 1845, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 5. The Kinsmen. (London, 1841, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 6. Confession. (London, 1845, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 7. Beauchampe. (London, 1842, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 8. Count Julian. (London, 1846, 1 vol. 8vo.) 
 
 9. The Wigwam and Cabin, issued as " Life in America, or the 
 
 Wigwam and the Cabin." (Aberdeen, 1848.) 
 
 Simms's review of Mrs. Trollope was reprinted in 
 England along with other American critiques in 1833. 
 (See Allibone, art. Trollope, Frances.) 
 
 Translations. 
 
 Allibone says that many of Simms's works were trans 
 lated into French and German. Inquiries have been 
 made in Paris, and Lorenz's " Catalogue de la Librairie 
 Franchise " has been searched, but no French translation 
 has been discovered. According to Kayser's " Biicher 
 Lexikon," the following German translations have ap 
 peared : 
 
 1. The Wigwam and Cabin. (Wigwam und Hiitte. Leipzig, 
 
 1846.) 
 
 2. The Yemassee. (Der Yemassee-Indianer. Leipzig, 1847. 
 
 2 Bde.)
 
 342 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the " Bibliothek Amerikanische," Leipzig, 1853-64 : 
 
 3. Katharine Walton. (Nos. 26-29.) 
 
 4. Marie de Berniere. (Nos. 62-64.) 
 
 5. The Sword and the Distaff. (Schwert und Spindel. Nos. 
 
 100-104.) 
 
 6. Richard Hurdis. (Nos. 280-284.) 
 
 7. Guy Rivers. (Nos. 323-326.) , 
 
 8. Border Beagles. (Die Grenzjagd. Nos. 333-337.) 
 
 9. The Cassique of Kiawah. (Der Kassike von Kiawa. Nos. 
 
 396-400.) 
 10. The Partisan. (Der Parteiganger. Nos. 411-415.) 
 
 Several books which have been assigned to Simms by 
 his bibliographers have been omitted from the above lists 
 for reasons which cannot be given in detail. They are : 
 
 1. The Star Brethren and Other Stories. Simms made up a vol 
 
 ume of short stories under this title, but Mr. Davidson seems 
 to be the only authority for its existence in printed form. 
 
 2. Slavery in the South. (Richmond, 1831.) Allibone mentions 
 
 this pamphlet, but there are reasons for believing that he 
 confused it with "Slavery in America." (Richmond, 1838.) 
 
 3. The Battle of Fort Moultrie : a Discourse. Allibone seems to 
 
 be the sole authority for this. It was probably a lecture, 
 and may have remained in manuscript as other lectures, 
 such as " Poetry and the Practical," certainly did. 
 
 4. The Swamp Robbers. (1870.) Attributed to Simms by the 
 
 " Literary World." (Oct. 21, 1882.) This may have been 
 confounded with " The Island Bride " or " Helen Halsey," 
 or the latter story may have really changed its name a third 
 time. 
 
 Besides the above Simms has been wrongly credited 
 with "Poems of a Collegian" (1833. By Thomas 
 Semmes) ; " Rombert, a Tale of Carolina " (1835. 
 Anonymous) ; "Osceola, etc." (1838. By Seymour R. 
 Duke); "Pelayo, etc." (1836. By Mrs. Mowatt) / 
 Historical and Social Sketch of Craven County (S. Q. R.> 
 April, 1854. By Prof. F. A. Porcher).
 
 INDEX, 
 
 ABOLITIONISTS, 141, 181, 198, 224. 
 
 Adams, Dr. C. K., 244. 
 
 Addiaon, Joseph, 45. 
 
 " Adrian Beaufain," Siinrus'a nom de 
 
 plume, 134. 
 Aetius, 274. 
 Aikin (S. C.), Simms's address at, 
 
 Alcott, A. Bronson, 198. 
 
 Aldrich, A. P., 64 note, 154, 282, 284. 
 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 103. 
 
 Alliboue, S. A., 74 note. 
 
 Allston, Washington, 27, 156, 157 note. 
 
 " American Quarterly Review," 73, 
 
 84, 91. 
 Anderson, Maj. Robert, 258, 259, 261, 
 
 262 note. 
 
 AndrtS, Maj. John, 138. 
 "Appleton's New American Cyclopae 
 dia," 11, 237. 
 " Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American 
 
 Biography," 158 note. 
 " Areytos," 144 ; revised edition, 243 
 
 244. 
 Arnold, Gen. Benedict, 138 ; Simms's 
 
 drama on, 275. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 48, 325. 
 Arthur's, T. 8., "Home Gazette," 
 
 201. 
 
 " As Good as a Comedy," 200, 201. 
 " Atalantis," 11, 69, 70, 72, 73-76, 114, 
 
 144, 206, 247. 
 "Atlantic Monthly," 254 note, 308, 
 
 320. 
 
 Attila, 274. 
 Audubon, J. J., 27. 
 Austin, Arthur W., 304, 308, 312. 
 
 BABCOCK, James F., 77. 
 
 Bachman, Rev. John, 27. 
 
 Bailey, James H., 303. 
 
 Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 120. 
 
 Bancroft, George, 220. 
 
 Barnwell (9. C.), 64 note, 95, 141, 
 
 154, 280. 
 
 Bassett, Sailing-Master, 8. 
 Beaconsfield, Benjamin D'Israeli, 
 
 Earl of, 320. 
 
 Beauchamp, Col., 117. 
 
 " Beauchampe," 116, 117-119, 123, 
 
 125, 192, 211. 
 Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T., 261 note, 
 
 279. 
 
 Beecher, Col. James C., 291. 
 Bird, Dr. R. M., 86, 91, 119, 207, 208, 
 
 329 ; his " Calavar," 86 ; " The In 
 fidel," 207 ; " Nick of the Woods," 
 
 91. 
 
 Black Crook, The, 303. 
 Blackstone, Judge William, 14, 44, 46, 
 
 190. 
 
 Blair, Gen. F. P., Jr., 283, 284. 
 Bledsoe, Prof. A. T., 246. 
 Bliss, Col. W. W. 8., 203. 
 Boccaccio's Decameron, 209. 
 Bockie, John J., 302, 323; Simms's 
 
 letters to, 211, 253, 291, 292, 294, 
 
 299-302. 
 
 Bocock, Thomas S., 243. 
 Boker, George H., 307, 308. 
 Bonham, Gen. Milledge L., 215-217. 
 " Book of My Lady, The," 82, 83. 
 Boone, Daniel, Simms's essay on, 137. 
 " Border Beagles," 116, 120, 121, 315, 
 
 328. 
 Border Romances, the, 16, 87-89, 110, 
 
 115-119, 150, 211. 
 Border States in the Confederacy, 
 
 263, 264. 
 Boston (Mass.), Simms's visits to, 
 
 304, 312. 
 
 Bowie, Col. James, 215. 
 Bradford Club Series, 303. 
 Breckinridge, J. C., 250. 
 Briggs, C. F., 158, 159. 
 Brisbane, Col. A. H., 156, 167. 
 " Broadway Journal," 151, 159-161. 
 Brown, Charles Brockden, 83, 94, 151, 
 
 159, 160, 329 ; his " Wieland," 94. 
 Browning, Robert, 82 ; Simms's criti 
 cism of, 197. 
 Bruns, Dr. J. D., 228, 230, 294, 296, 
 
 308. 
 Bryant, William Cullen, 49, 69, 70, 97, 
 
 99, 120, 137, 154, 158, 219, 220, 323. 
 Buchanan, President James, 249, 256. 
 
 No references are made to the Appendix.
 
 344 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Buckle, H. T., 287. 
 
 Buuyaii's "Pilgrim's Progress." 7, 
 
 214. 
 " Burden of the Desert, The," Sunms's 
 
 poem, 144. 
 Burke, Edmund, 36. 
 Burns, Robert, 295. 
 Butler, Mrs. Fanny Kemble, 71. 
 Byron, Lord, 7, 20, 143. 
 
 CABLE, G. W., 201. 
 
 Cain, W. M., 142. 
 
 Caldwell, H. H., 237, 238. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., 30, 59-61, 64, 155, 
 166, 169, 182, 183, 190, 216, 319, 323, 
 332. 
 
 Campbell, Justice John A., 165. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 74, 297. 
 
 Canada, Simms's speculations about, 
 123, 124. 
 
 Carlisle, W. B., 229. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 287. 
 
 Carroll, Charles R., 14, 66, 276. 
 
 Carruthers, Dr. William A., 131. 
 
 Cartwright, Dr. J. W., 165. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, 178, 256 note. 
 
 " Cassique of Accabee, The,". 144. 
 
 " Cassique of Kiawah, The," 240-242. 
 
 " Castle Dismal," 150. 
 
 Cavaliers, Southern, 31-37, 146-148, 
 289,297. 
 
 Channing, Prof. Edward, 140. 
 
 Chapin, Rev. E. H., 220, 221. 
 
 Chapman's, George, " Homer," 46. 
 
 " Charlemont," 118, 211. 
 
 Charles I. of England, 146, 147. 
 
 Charles Martel, 274. 
 
 Charleston (S. C.), Simms's life in, 1- 
 14, 44-19, 52-55, 57-66, 83, 155, 156, 
 227-229, 235-237, 292-299, 316-319 ; 
 its indifference to Simms, 16, 17, 
 19, 20, 45, 46, 52, 55, 65, 68, 83, 128, 
 129, 136, 156, 195, 238, 239, 244, 
 245, 247, 266, 267, 307, 318, 319. 323, 
 324 ; as a literary centre, 25, 45, 46, 
 50, 51 ; the drama in, 24, 47, 214- 
 217, 314 ; nullification in, 28, 62-64 ; 
 under British occupation, 192, 193 ; 
 description of, in 1825,20, 21, 23- 
 29 ; in 1840-50, 155, 156 ; in 1850- 
 60, 229 ; in 1865-70, 293, 294, 296, 
 299-302. 
 
 " Charleston Book, The," 50, 73. 
 
 Charleston "City Gazette," 47, 54, 
 57, 63, 64, 68. 
 
 Charleston " Courier," 45, 142, 215, 
 216, 230, 293, 295, 307, 317, 318, 319. 
 
 Charleston "Daily South Carolinian," 
 262, 263. 
 
 Charleston " Mercury," 156, 217, 218, 
 229, 232, 237, 251, 253, 268. 
 
 Charleston " Times," 2. 
 
 " Charleston Year Book, The," (1883), 
 261 note. 
 
 Chartists, 186. 
 
 Cherokees, 15, 91. 
 
 Chves, Langdon, 182. 
 
 ChevUlette, Col., 96. 
 
 Clapp, J. M., 132, 165. 
 
 Classon, Isaac S. , 119. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 62, 175, 183. 
 
 Coffee, Gen. John, 13. 
 
 Coligny, Admiral Gaspard de, 196. 
 
 Collins, William, 235. 
 
 Columbia (8. C.), Simms's residence 
 in, 279; burning of, 280-282. 
 
 Columbia " Phoenix," 281, 282. 
 
 Columbia " Telegraph," 218. 
 
 " Confession," 122-124. 
 
 Congressional Globe, 250. 
 
 Cooke, John Esten, 103, 193, 194, 210, 
 242, 297, 305; his "Mohun," 194; 
 "Surrey of Eagle's Nest," 194, 
 297 ; " Virginia Comedians," 193 ; 
 " Wearing of the Gray," 194 note. 
 
 Cooke, Philip Pendleton, 103, 104, 
 146. 
 
 Cooper, J. Fenimore, 49, 81, 83-S5, 
 91, 92, 94, 111, 112, 157, 159, 160, 
 241, 316, 329; Simms's essay on, 
 137 ; his "Last of the Mohicans," 
 94 ; " Spy," 110 ; " Pathfinder," 159. 
 
 Cooper, Dr. Thomas, 56. 
 
 Cooper, Thomas Anthorpe, 47. 
 
 Copse Hill (Hayne's residence), 
 Simms's visit to, 298. 
 
 Copyright, Simms on, 262. 
 
 " Cortes, Cain, and Other Poems," 58. 
 
 Cortes, Hernando, 127, 209. 
 
 " Cosmopolitan," Simms's, 83. 
 
 " Cosmopolitan," (?), 317. 
 
 Cotton States, policy of, 263-265. 
 
 " Count Julian," 112, 114, 122, 125. 
 
 Cowper, William, 49. 
 
 Crafts, William, 26, 47, 60, 51. 
 
 Creeks (Indians), 9, 13, 15, 48, 91. 
 
 Crockett, Col. David, 185, 215, 216. 
 
 " Cub of the Panther, The," 311, 314, 
 315. 
 
 Cuba, Simms's views as to the acqui 
 sition of, 124, 207, 248. 
 
 DABNEY, Richard, 49. 
 
 "Damsel of Darien, The," 120, 207, 
 
 210. 
 
 Dana, Charles A., 230. 
 Dana, Richard Henry, Sr., 157 note. 
 Darley, F. O. C., 158, 210. 
 Davis, Jefferson, 166. 
 DeBow, J. D. B., 132, 165. 
 De Fontaine, F. G., 292, 293. 
 
 De Leon, , 218. 
 
 Democratic party, Simms's views of, 
 
 248, 249. 
 
 " Democratic Review," 133, 158-160. 
 De Soto, Fernando, 15, 207-209. 
 Dew, Prof. Thomas R., 204. 
 Dickens, Charles, 201, 272.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 345 
 
 Dickinson, George K., 200, 215. 
 
 Dickson, Dr. 8. H., 155, 229. 
 
 " Donna Florida," 143, 144. 
 
 Dorchester (8. 0.), 107, 108. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 250, 251. 
 
 Drake, Dr. Joseph Rodman, 49. 
 
 Drayton, Michael, 297. 
 
 Du Boisgobey, Fortune", 201. 
 
 Duryea, E. 8., 57, 63, 65. 
 
 Duyckinck, Evert A., 134, 157, 158, 
 210, 291, 292, 302 ; his " Cyclopaedia 
 of American Literature " written for 
 by Simms, 212. 
 
 " EABLT LAYS," 53, 120, 247. 
 
 " Edge of the Swamp, The," (Simms's 
 poem), 100. 
 
 Edisto River, 98, 100, 275, 309. 
 
 Education, in the South, 5, 6; of 
 women, 33. 
 
 " Egeria," 206. 
 
 Eliot, George (Mrs. Cross), 118. 
 
 Ellet, Mrs. Elizabeth F., 158. 
 
 Elliot, Stephen, Sr., 27, 55-57, 132. 
 
 Elliott, Rt. Rev. Stephen, Jr., 56, 246. 
 
 Elliott, William, 56. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 198. 
 
 England, her interest in Southern cot 
 ton, 180, 188 ; Simms's romances 
 read in, 125, 126, 153, 320, 321. 
 
 England, Rt. Rev. John, 27. 
 
 " Eutaw," 211-215. 
 
 " Eye and the Wing, The," 144. 
 
 FARMER, H. T., 50. 
 
 " Father Abbot," 156, 203, 227. 
 
 Fay's, Theodore 8., " Norman Leslie," 
 85, 160. 
 
 Felton, Prof. C. C., criticises Simms, 
 153. 
 
 Ferris, W. H., 302, 309 ; Simms's let 
 ters to, 291, 310. 
 
 Feudalism in the South, 31-37. 
 
 Fields, James T., 230, 308. 
 
 Flint, Rev. Timothy, 74, 78, 80, 82 ; 
 his "Francis Berrian," 86. 
 
 Fonblanque, Albany W., 152. 
 
 Fort Moultrie, 25, 55, 156, 256, 257. 
 
 Fort Sumter, 256-261, 267, 283. 
 
 Francis, Dr. J. W., 207, 220. 
 
 "Frank Cooper," Simula's nom de 
 plume, 206, 207. 
 
 Fraser, Charles, 27, 156, 157 note. 
 
 Fredericksburg, Simms's account of 
 the battle of, 272. 
 
 Frederick the Great of Prussia, 96. 
 
 GADSDEN, Gen. Christopher, 28. 
 Garden, Rev. Alexander, 28. 
 Garland's, Hugh A., "Life of John 
 
 Randolph," 182. 
 Garrick, David, 86. 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, 288. 
 Gates, Gen. Horatio, 106. 
 
 Gates, Mrs., 3, 4, 8-10, 12, 14, 19, 67, 
 
 68. 
 Gayarre', Judge Charles E. A., 158, 
 
 297. 
 Georgia, politics of, 179, 180, 182, 186, 
 
 188. 
 " Ghost of my Husband, The." See 
 
 " Marie de Berniere." 
 Gibbes, Dr. R. W., 165, 281. 
 "Gift, The, "151. 
 Gildersleeve, Prof. B. L., 229, 254, 
 
 note. 
 Giles, Anna Malcolm, 14 ; marries 
 
 Simms, 47 ; her death, 67, 68. 
 Giles, Othniel J., 47. 
 
 Gilfert, , 47. 
 
 Oilman, Mrs. Caroline, 155. 
 
 Gilman, Rev. Samuel, 155. 
 
 Godey, Louis A., 218, 219. 
 
 " Godey's Lady's Book," 118, 131, 133, 
 
 161, 191, 218. 
 Godwin, Parke, 158. 
 Godwin, William, 81, 122. 
 " Golden Christmas, The," 195, 196, 
 
 200, 215. 
 Goldsmith's, Oliver, " Vicar of Wake- 
 
 fleld," 7. 
 
 " Graham's Magazine," 104, 133, 159, 
 " Grayling," 151, 152. 
 Grayson, William J., 156, 165, 229. 
 
 230; his "Memoir of Petigru,*' 
 
 62 ; " Hireling and the Slave," 175. 
 Great Harrington (Mass.), Simms'a 
 
 visits to, 70, 120, 158, 304. 
 Greene, Gen. Nalhanael, 213 ; Simms's 
 
 life of, 138-140. 
 Grimkc*, Thomas 8., 27, 56, 60. 
 Griswold, Rev. Rufus W., 49, 51, 69, 
 
 73, 152 note. 
 "Grouped Thoughts and Scattered 
 
 Fancies," 144, 145. 
 Guizot's, F. P. G., " Democracy in 
 
 France " reviewed by Simms, 190. 
 Gunn, James, 182. 
 Gustavus Yasa, 186. 
 
 Guy Rivers," 85-89, 91, 114-116, 125, 
 
 127, 247, 316. 
 
 HALE, Mrs. Sarah J., 118. 
 
 Hall, Judge James, 88 ; his " Legends 
 
 of the West," 153. 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 49, 70, 157. 
 Hammond, Gov. James H., 154, 164, 
 
 178, 179, 183, 188 note, 204, 217, 249. 
 Hammond, Maj. M. C. M., 165, 189, 
 
 203, 216, 217, 240, 296. 
 Hamptons, the, partisans, 213. 
 Harpers, publishers, 70, 73, 77, 79, 85, 
 
 110, 112. 
 
 Harper, James, 111. 
 Harper, Chancellor William, 204. 
 Harvey's, Augustus, " Spectator," 
 
 231. 
 Hasell, William 8., 50.
 
 346 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 152, 153, 159, 
 198, 329 ; his " Scarlet Letter," 198. 
 
 Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 7,97, 101, 103, 
 123, 148, 210, 224, 228-232, 242, 275, 
 294, 297, 298, 308, 327, 331, 332 ; 
 quoted, 25, 64, 143, 233, 238, 305, 
 321, 322 ; Simms's letters to, 275- 
 279, 295, 2%, 301, 311-314, 316-318. 
 
 Hayne, Robert Y., 27, 323. 
 
 Headley, Rev. James T., 134. 
 
 " Helen Halsey," 150,315-316. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 22. 
 
 Henry, Rev. Robert, 56. 
 
 Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee, 134. 
 
 Herrick, Robert, 124. 
 
 Hicks, Rev. W. W., 313. 
 
 Hingham (Mass.), Simula's visit to, 69. 
 
 " History of South Carolina " 
 (Simms's), 61, 120, 226, 242-245. 
 
 Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 78, 79 ; his 
 " Greyslaer," 119. 
 
 Holland, Edwin C., 50. 
 
 Holland, George, 71. 
 
 Holman, , 47. 
 
 Holmes, Prof. George F., 165. 
 
 Hood, Gen. J. B., 229. 
 
 Horace (Quint us Horatius Flaccus), 
 45. 
 
 Horry, Gen. Peter, 213. 
 
 Huger, Alfred, 229. 
 
 Hughes, Henry, 218. 
 
 Hunt, Randell, 79. 
 
 Hunter, R. M. T., 166, 250. 
 
 "ILLUMINATED WBSTRBN WOBLD," 
 
 312, 315. 
 
 " International Magazine," 200. 
 Irving, Washington, 49, 120, 153, 157, 
 
 207, 300 ; his " Salmagundi," 83. 
 " Island Bride, The." See " Helen 
 
 Halsey." 
 Izard, Ralph, 167. 
 
 JACKSON, President Andrew. 13, 62, 72. 
 Jackson, Gen. Henry R., 165. 
 Jackson, Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall), 
 
 Simms's poem on, 278. 
 James, G. P. R., 97, 200, 332. 
 Jamison, Gen. David, 154, 155, 165, 
 
 178, 191, 211, 250, 255, 262 note, 265- 
 
 267, 269, 275, 279, 308. 
 Jefferson, President Thomas, 22, 53, 
 
 172. 
 
 Johnson, Gov. David, 142. 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 98. 
 Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 279,280. 
 Jones, William A., 158, 160, 165. 
 Jonson, Ben, 313. 
 " Joscelyn," 295, 296, 299, 311. 
 Judd's, Rev. Sylvester, "Margaret," 
 
 198. 
 
 "KATHARINE WALTON," 108, 112, 125, 
 191-193, 212. 
 
 Keats, John, 127. 
 
 Kemble, Miss Fanny. See Mrs. But 
 ler. 
 
 Kennedy, J. P., 114, 329 ; his " Horse 
 shoe Robinson," 94, 107, 108. 
 
 Key, Francis Scott, 49. 
 
 King, Mitchell, 156, 165, 229. 
 
 King's, William L. , " Newspaper Press 
 of Charleston," 64 note. 
 
 " Kinsmen, The," 120, 125, 159. 
 
 Kirkland, Mrs. C. M., 158. 
 
 " Knickerbocker Magazine," 74, 78 
 80, 84, 104, 151 note. 
 
 Knight, Charles, 135. 
 
 LAFAYETTE, Marquis de, 14. 
 
 Lanier, Sidney, 75. 
 
 Langtree, Dr. Samuel Daly, 79, 80. 
 
 Larne (Ireland), 1. 
 
 Laurens, Col. John, Simms's memoS 
 
 of, 303. 
 
 " Lays of the Palmetto," 144. 
 Lawson, James, 70-72, 95, 99, 164, 159 
 
 note, 243, 245, 304, 312, 323; his 
 
 " Giordano," 71. 
 
 Lea and Blanchard, publishers, 121. 
 Lectures (Simms's), 137,140, 206, 211, 
 
 220-224, 310, 317, 318. 
 Lee, Lieut.-Col. Henry, 213. 
 Lee, Miss Mary E., 131. 
 Lee, Gen. Robert E., 279, 285, 288. 
 Lee's, S. Adams, "Book of the Son 
 net," 307. 
 Legare-, Hugh 8., 26, 51, 52, 55-67, 60, 
 
 68, 76, 132, 170 note, 246. 
 LegarcS, J. M., 134. 
 Lesesne, J. W., 165. 
 " Life of the Chevalier Bayard," 126, 
 
 138, 139. 
 "Life of Captain John Smith," 138, 
 
 139. 
 
 " Life of Francis Marion," 138, 139. 
 "Life of Nathanael Greene," 138- 
 
 140. 
 
 " Lily and the Totem, The," 196. 
 Lincoln, President Abraham, 251, 252, 
 
 288. 
 Lippincott, J. B., 307 ; his magazine, 
 
 Locke, John, 195. 
 
 London "Examiner," 151, 152. 
 
 London "Metropolitan," 74. 
 
 " London Quarterly Review," 320. 
 
 321. 
 
 London "Spectator," 125. 
 Longfellow, H. W., 198, 230. 
 Long Island Historical Society, 303. 
 Longstreet, Judge A. B., 131. 
 Lord, Samuel, Jr., 228, 301. 
 "Lost Pleiad, The," Simms's poem, 
 
 58. 
 
 Lovelace, Col. Richard, 146, 147, 235. 
 " Loves of the Driver, The," 13L 
 
 132.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 347 
 
 Lowell's, J. R., " Fable for Critics," 
 
 reviewed by Simms, 198. 
 Lynch, Rt. Rev. P. N., 165, 229. 
 " Lyrical and Other Poems," 48, 52. 
 
 MACLAY, William, 308. 
 McClurg, Dr. James, 49. 
 McCord, Col. D. J., 56, 165. 
 McCord, Mrs. L. 8., 165, 174-176. 
 McDuffie, George, 332. 
 "Mad Archy Campbell," 192. 
 Magnolia Cemetery, Simms's poem on, 
 
 196, 329. 
 
 " Magnolia " (Charleston), 131, 132. 
 " Magnolia " (Richmond), 275. 
 
 Malcomson, Rev. , 2. 
 
 Maltby, , 78. 
 
 " Marie de Berniere," 201, 295. 
 Marion, Gen. Francis, 22, 28, 106, 107, 
 
 110, 202, 213, 230 ; Simms's life of, 
 
 138, 139. 
 
 Marshall, Chief Justice John, 49. 
 Martineau's, Harriet, " Society in 
 
 America," reviewed by Simms, 114, 
 
 115, 172. 
 " Martin Faber," 76-82, 85, 122, 123, 
 
 210, 247. 
 
 Maryland authors in 1825, 49. 
 Matthews, Cornelius, 157. 
 Maury, Commodore M. F., 165. 
 Mayer, Brantz, 165. 
 Mayo, Dr. W. S., 330. 
 Means, Gov. J. H., 184, 188 note. 
 Meek, A. B., 131, 134, 158, 165, 328. 
 " Mellichampe," 102, 108, 111, 112. 
 Melville, Herman, 330. 
 Mexican war, 143, 144, 165, 215. 
 Mexico, Simms's schemes about, 124, 
 
 264. 
 * Memoir and Correspondence of Col. 
 
 John Laurens," 303. 
 11 Michael Bonham," 201, 214-217. 
 Michel, Dr. Richard, 228. 
 Midway (S. C.), 97, 269, 280, 284. 
 Miles, Rev. James W., 155, 165, 229, 
 
 318, 319. 
 Miles, William Porcher, 155, 165, 240- 
 
 245, 248 ; Simms's letters to, 248- 
 
 268, 270-272. 
 Mills's, Clark, statue of Washington, 
 
 243. 
 Milman's, Rev. Henry Hart, "Fazio," 
 
 71. 
 Milton, John, 75 ; hia " Paradise 
 
 Lost," 329. 
 Minor, W. G., 165. 
 Mississippi, politics in, 218. 
 Missouri Compromise, 59. 
 Missouri " Republican," 200. 
 Mitchell, D. G. (Ik Marvel), 103. 
 " Monody on Gen. Charles Cotesworth 
 
 Pinckney," 45. 
 Montrose, James, Marquis of, 146, 
 
 147. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 7. 
 
 "Moral Character of Hamlet, The," 
 Simms's articles on, 133. 
 
 Morpeth, Lord (George William Fred 
 erick Howard, seventh Earl of Car 
 lisle), 129. 
 
 Morris, William, 235. 
 
 Mortimer, C., 211. 
 
 " Mother Goose," Simms's revision of, 
 303. 
 
 Muller, A. A., 50. 
 
 Munro's, George, " Fireside Compan 
 ion," 315. 
 
 Murrell, John A., 116, 117 note. 
 
 NASHVILLE Convention, 178, 179. 
 
 Negro character, Simms's treatment 
 of, 132. 
 
 Negroes as freedmen, 290-293, 301. 
 
 New England, 23, 55, 124, 153, 157 
 note, 255, 264, 308 ; colleges of, 
 6 ; literature of, 50 ; authors of, 
 Simms's views about, 197, 198. 
 
 " New England Magazine," 84. 
 
 New Haven (Conn.), Simms's resi 
 dence in, 76-78. 
 
 New Orleans, condition of, after the 
 war, 297, 308. 
 
 New Orleans " Delta," 238. 
 
 New South, the, 289, 290, 314. 
 
 New York " American," 78, 79. 
 
 New York city, Simms's visits to, 69- 
 72, 79, 80, 83, 89, 102, 110, 113, 119, 
 157, 158, 220-224, 243, 291, 294, 304, 
 309, 312. 
 
 New York " Evening Post," 222. 
 
 New York " Herald," 220, 221. 
 
 New York "Mercantile Advertiser," 
 70. 
 
 New York " Mirror," 83, 89, 160. 
 
 New York " Times," 223 note. 
 
 New York "Tribune," 220, 221, 225. 
 
 "Nineteenth Century" (Charleston), 
 313 
 
 "Norman Maurice," 199, 200, 215. 
 
 "North American Review," 31 note, 
 55, 56, 153, 164, 198, 242, 244. 
 
 North Carolina, mountains of, 209, 
 210, 306. 
 
 Northern States, progress of, 22, 168 ; 
 national feeling in, 169, 170 ; politi 
 cal trimmers in, 218, 219 ; influence 
 on Simms, 76, 247, 248. 
 
 Nott, Prof. H. J., 56. 
 
 Nott, Dr. J. C., 165. 
 
 Nullification, 30, 58-62, 72, 180, 183. 
 
 OLD GUARD," 295, 296, 311, 315. 
 
 Orion," 133, 135. 
 Orr, Gov. James L., 296. 
 "Paddy McGann," 272, 275. 
 " Partisan, The," 94, 95, 102, 106-111, 
 
 159, 192, 210. 
 Pauldiug, James K., 85, 158, 329.
 
 348 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Peabody.C. H.,79. 
 
 Peacock's, Thomas Love, " Rhodo- 
 
 daphne," 49. 
 Peisistratos, 30. 
 " Pelayo," 112, 114, 122, 210. 
 Pendleton, P. C., 131. 
 Percival, James Gates, 49. 
 Perry, Gov. B. F., 165. 
 Petigru, James Louis. 26, 60, 62, 156, 
 
 229. 
 Philadelphia (Pa.), Simms's books 
 
 published at, 121 ; indifference to 
 
 Boker, 307. 
 
 Pickens, Gen. Andrew, 213. 
 Pickett, A. J., 328. 
 Pierpont, Rev. John, 41, 321. 
 Pike, Albert, 134. 
 Pinckuey, Gen. Charles Cotesworth, 
 
 27, 44, 45. 
 
 Pinckney, Rev. C. C., 319. 
 Pinckney, Mrs., 280, 283. 
 Pinkney, Edward Coate, 49, 145. 
 Piukney, William, 49. 
 Plato, 198. 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, 44 note, 55, 71, 76, 
 
 80, 81, 83, 103, 105. 109, 117, 120, 
 
 149-153, 177, 192, 208, 234, 329, 330 ; 
 
 his " Tamerlane," 49 note ; his 
 
 "Marginalia," 159; his relations 
 
 with Simms, 158-161. See also 
 
 " Broadway Journal." 
 "Poems Descriptive," etc., 206. 
 Poinsett, Joel R., 27, 60, 165. 
 Poole, William Laurens, 66. 
 Pope, Alexander, 45; his "Homer," 
 
 46. 
 
 Porcher, Prof. Fred. A., 165. 
 Porclier, Dr. F. P., 228, 319, 321,322 ; 
 
 Simms's letters to, 268, 269, 276. 
 Porter, B. F., 165. 
 Postel, Karl. See Sealsfield. 
 Powers's, Hiram, statue of Calhoun, 
 
 323. 
 
 Prescott, William H., 207. 
 Preston, William C., 203. 
 " Pro-Slavery Argument, The," 204. 
 Putnam, Gen. Israel, 205. 
 " Putnam's Magazine," 246, 248 note. 
 
 QuiJf, James, Garrick's lines on, 86. 
 
 RAMSAY, Dr. David, 65 note, 229. 
 Ramsay, David, 229. 
 Randall, James R., 147, 297. 
 Randolph, John (of Roanoke), 176, 
 
 179, 182, 183. 
 Rawdon, Lord Francis (Marquis of 
 
 Hastings), 213. 
 
 Redfield, J. S., 207, 210, 247 note. 
 Republican party, 257. 
 Requier, A. J., 134. 
 Reynolds, F. M., his " Miserrimus " 
 
 criticised by Simms, 77, 78. 
 
 Revolutionary documents, Simms's 
 
 collection of, 302. 
 Revolutionary romances, 106-109, 201, 
 
 211, 320, 327-332. 
 
 Rhett, R. B., 182, 183, 250, 251, 278. 
 " Richard Hurdis," 115, 116, 121, 150. 
 Richards, W. C., 133, 134, 231. 
 Richardson, Maynard D., 72 ; Simms's 
 
 memoir of, 73. 
 Richelieu, Cardinal de, 190. 
 Richmond (Va.), Simms's visits to, 
 
 177, 222. 
 
 Richmond " Enquirer," 295 note. 
 Ritchie, Thomas, 179, 295. 
 Rivers, Prof. W. J., 242. 
 Rives, William C., 179. 
 Roach, Chevillette, 96, 97, 225, 239, 
 
 269 ; marries Simms, 95 ; her death, 
 
 276. 
 Roach, Edward, marries Simms's 
 
 daughter Anna, 240. 
 Roach, Mrs. Edward. See Simms, 
 
 Anna Augusta. 
 
 Roach, Nash, 95-97, 99, 212, 225, 239. 
 Roderick, the last of the Goths, 
 
 Simms's tragedy on, 14, 47, 112. 
 Rowe, Maj. Daniel, 312 ; marries 
 
 Simms's daughter Chevillette, 293. 
 Russell, John, 229. 
 "Russell's Magazine," 229, 230,232, 
 
 237. 
 Rutledge, Chief Justice John, 22, 28. 
 
 " SABBATH LYRICS," 144, 145. 
 Sabine, Lorenzo, Simms's controversy 
 
 with, 204, 205, 222 ; his " American 
 
 Loyalists," 204. 
 " Sack and Destruction of the City of 
 
 Columbia, S. C." 281, 283. 
 Sands, Robert C., 69, 70. 
 Savannah Convention ignores Simms, 
 
 245-247. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 84, 92, 329. 
 Scott, Gen. Winfield, 250 note. 
 " Scout, The." See "Kinsmen, The." 
 Sealsneld, (Karl Postel), 88 ; his 
 
 " Courtship of Ralph Doughby, 
 
 Esquire," 88 note. 
 Secession, 30, 178, 180, 183, 244, 253, 
 
 254,267. 
 
 Sedgwick, Miss C. M., 70, 330. 
 Selby, Julian A., 282. 
 Semmes, Admiral Raphael, 305, 320. 
 " Sense of the Beautiful, The, " 
 
 Simms's address, 317, 318. 
 Shakespeare, William, Simms's views 
 
 on his " Othello," 122, 123; Simms 
 
 edits a supplement to his plays, 
 
 135 ; Simms's study of, 135, 136 ; 
 
 Simms adapts his "Timon" for the 
 
 stage, 145 ; Simms annotates his 
 
 plays, 310 ; Dana's lectures on, 157 
 
 note.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 349 
 
 Shaler, Prof. N. S., 31. 
 
 Sharpe, Col., 117, 118. 
 
 Bhelley, Harriet, 86. 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 75, 86. 
 
 Sherman, Geu. W. T., 279-281. 
 
 Sidney's, Sir Philip, " Defence of 
 Poesy," 144. 
 
 Simmons, James W., 53, 54, 57. 
 
 Simmons, William H., 165. 
 
 Simms, Anna Augusta ^rs. Edward 
 Roach), 53, 68, 120, 158, 240, 294, 
 310, 313. 
 
 Simms, Chevillette Eliza (Mrs. Rowe), 
 154, 293, 308. 
 
 Simms, Eli, 1. 
 
 Simms, James, 1. 
 
 Simms, John, 3. 
 
 Simms, Matthew, 1. 
 
 Simms, William Gilmore, ST., 1-4, 9, 
 11-13, 15-17, 67-69, 97, 238, 324. 
 
 Simms, William Gilmore : born at 
 Charleston, 1 ; left to his grand 
 mother's care, 4 ; lack of schooling, 
 4-6 ; apprenticed, 9 ; begins to 
 study law, 14 ; visits the Southwest, 
 14-18 ; settles in Charleston, 19 ; 
 publishes his first volume of poetry, 
 44; marries for the first time, 47; 
 admitted to the bar, 52 ; begins his 
 editorial career, 53 , becomes an 
 anti-nullifier, 59 ; attacked by a mob, 
 63; gives up his newspaper, 65; 
 second journey to the Southwest, 
 67 ; domestic losses, 67, 68 ; makes 
 his first visit North, 69 ; publishes 
 "Atalantis," 73; makes his first 
 venture in fiction, 76; becomes a 
 successful romancer, 83; marries a 
 second time, 95 ; takes up his resi 
 dence at Woodlands, 96 ; new lit 
 erary work, 112 ; becomes an editor 
 once more, 131 ; elected to the legis 
 lature, 141; delivers political ha 
 rangues, 141, 142 ; takes charge of 
 the " Southern Quarterly Review," 
 163-165 ; conducts a political corre 
 spondence with Beverley Tucker, 
 178, 188 ; becomes a romancer once 
 more, 191 ; has a controversy with 
 Sabine, 204, 205 : has a play per 
 formed in Charleston, 214-217 ; fails 
 as a lecturer in New York, 220-224 ; 
 begins to lose his health, 224-226 ; 
 loses his two sons by yellow fever, 
 240 ; approves of the secession of 
 South Carolina, 252 ; makes sugges 
 tions as to the bombardment of Fort 
 Sumter, 255-262 ; has his house at 
 Woodlands burned for the first time, 
 269-271 ; loses his wife, 276 ; is pres 
 ent at the sack of Columbia, 281, 
 282 ; has his dwelling burned a sec 
 ond time, 280, 283, 284; edits the 
 "Phoenix," 282, 283; returns to 
 
 Charleston and lives in poverty, 
 292 ; meditates removing to the 
 North, 293-295, 308 ; visits Hayne at 
 Copse Hill, 298 ; labors to relieve 
 the Charleston poor, 302, 304; re 
 builds at Woodlands, 309; over 
 works himself on three romances, 
 310-313 ; goes to Charleston to die, 
 314 ; last illness and death, 318 ; his 
 funeral, 319 ; his bust erected, 321, 
 322. 
 
 His boyish verses and reading, 6 ; 
 his sickly childhood, 10, 64 ; influ 
 ence of his father's and grandmo 
 ther's stories, 8, 9, 12, 324; influ 
 ence of his border journeys, 15, 16 ; 
 views as to his own poetry, 43, 44, 
 127 ; his knowledge of Indian char 
 acter, 91 ; his lack of scholarship, 
 136, 140 ; his love of the drama, 71, 
 135, 136, 216 ; his conscientiousness 
 as a writer, 75, 91, 191, 192, 211 ; his 
 success in treating humble charac 
 ters, 109, 132, 193 ; his genre work, 
 195, 196 ; his careless literary habits, 
 82, 85, 110, 111, 325 ; his fecundity 
 in composition, 115, 126, 135, 143, 
 197, 236 ; his knowledge of military 
 affairs, 255-261, 265-267, 271, 272 ; 
 his knowledge of botany, 268, 269 ; 
 his political aspirations, 141-143, 
 203 ; his criticism of the aristocracy, 
 129, 193-195; his appearance in 1831, 
 64 ; in 1847, 142-143 ; his hospitality 
 and kindness, 97, 98, 114, 294, 299, 
 301, 302, 325 ; general conclusions as 
 to his character and work, 324-332 ; 
 his children not named in index, 
 119, 154, 239, 240, 242, 268, 276, 304, 
 314, 328. See, also, Charleston, Lec 
 tures, New York, and Slavery. 
 
 Simms, William Gilmore, Jr., 239, 253, 
 276, 277, 293, 300, 308, 312. 
 
 "Simms's Magazine," 134, 160. 
 
 Singleton, Harriet, 2, 67, 324 ; marries 
 W. G. Simms, Sr., 2 ; her death, 3. 
 
 Singleton, John, 2, 3, 65 note. 
 
 Singleton, Thomas, 65 note. 
 
 Slavery, 22, 24, 31, 59, 158, 180, 223 ; 
 on Simms's plantation, 99 ; views of 
 Simms and others on, 167, 172-176; 
 252, 254 note ; 262, 265 ; its general 
 effects on the South, 37-41 ; its in 
 fluence on Southern literature, 50, 
 51, 56, 105, 246 ; in South Carolina, 
 171, 172 ; attitude of Virginia states 
 men towards, 40, 171 ; its relations 
 to politics, 167-170 ; the chief cause 
 of the war. 170 note, 251, 252, 254 
 note, 274, 2fc6. 
 
 Smith, Judge William, 59, 177. 
 
 Smollett, Dr. Tobias, 203. 
 
 South Carolina, common schools In, 
 4-6 ; in the revolutionary war, 8,
 
 350 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 106, 107, 121, 202, 204, 205 ; its rela 
 tion to Charleston, 23; inconsist 
 encies of its people, 29, 30, 42 ; 
 nullification in, 58-62 ; politics in, 
 180-183, 187 ; effects of its history 
 on Simms, 53, 90. 
 
 South Carolina College, Simms pro 
 posed for president of, 203. 
 
 South Carolina Jockey Club, 26. 
 
 " South Carolina in the Revolutionary 
 War," 204, 205, 220. 
 
 Southern Confederacy, projects for, 
 178, 179, 184-189, 210, 249, 250. 
 
 Southern conventions, 178, 179, 245- 
 247. 
 
 "Southern Illustrated News," 272, 275. 
 
 Southern literature, in 1825, 49-52; 
 drawbacks to, 104, 165, 113, 232 ; 
 Savannah Convention on, 246. See 
 Slavery. 
 
 11 Southern Literary Gazette " 
 (Simms's), 54, 55, 76, 135. 
 
 " Southern Literary Gazette " (Rich- 
 ards's), 231. 
 
 " Southern Literary Journal." 102, 
 103, 131. 
 
 *' Southern Literary Messenger," 94, 
 103-105, 114, 120, 134, 145, 182, 199, 
 215, 225, 262. 
 
 " Southern Passages and Pictures," 
 119. 
 
 Southern Poetry and Poets, 75, 76, 
 145-149, 234, 297. 
 
 " Southern Poetry of the War," 295- 
 297. 
 
 'Southern Quarterly Review," 113, 
 m-134, 163-166, 173, 175, 177, 182, 
 190, 196-198, 204, 211, 212 note. 
 
 " Southern Review," 26, 27, 52,55-57, 
 132. 
 
 " Southern Society " (Baltimore), 306, 
 312. 
 
 Southern States, decay in power of, 
 22, 23 ; characteristics of, before the 
 war, 31-42 ; hospitality in, 33, 34, 
 97 ; political literature of, 190 ; poli 
 tics of, in 1860, 249-251. See, also, 
 Southern Literature, and Southern 
 Poetry and Poets. 
 
 " Southron," 131. 
 
 " Southward Ho ! " 70, 209, 210. 
 
 Spanish history, its effects on Simms, 
 112, 119, 207. 
 
 Spierin, George Heartwell, 50. 
 
 " Star of the West " fired on, 255 note, 
 256 
 
 Stark, Gen. John, 205. 
 
 States-rights, 56, 59, 60, 167, 168, 170, 
 171, 244, 246, 251, 252. 
 
 Btedman, E. C., 46, 146. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander, H., 166, 182. 
 
 Stevens, Col. C. H., 261, 262 note. 
 
 Stewart, Col. Alexander, 213. 
 
 Stewart, Virgil A., 116. 
 
 Stowe's, Mrs. H. B., "TTncle Tom's 
 
 Cabin," 175, 219. 
 Suckling, Sir John, 146, 147. 
 Sullivan's Island, 25, 156. 
 Summerville (S.C.), Simms's residence 
 
 at, 48, 67, 72. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 220-224. 
 Sumter, Gen. Thomas, 28, 213. 
 " Supplement to the Plays of William 
 
 Shakespeare, A," 155, 156. 
 "Sword and the Distaff, The," 201- 
 
 203. 
 
 TABKB, -William R., 229. 
 
 "Tablet, The," 53, 54. 
 
 Tacitus' " Germania," 32. 
 
 Tarleton, Col. B., 106. 
 
 Taylor, President Zachary, 203. 
 
 Tefft, I. K., 302. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 235 ; his 
 " Locksley Hall " quoted, 290. 
 
 Texas, the annexation of, 123, 124, 
 141, 182 ; exploits of Crockett and 
 others in, 215, 216. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., 262. 
 
 Thompson, John R., 97, 103, 104, 182, 
 225. 
 
 Thornwell, Rev. J. H., 212 note. 
 
 Ticknor and Fields, publishers, 308. 
 
 Timrod, Henry, 147, 148, 224, 227, 228, 
 230, 231, 233-235, 277, 278, 292, 293, 
 295-297, 300, 301, 306, 308. 
 
 Timrod, William H., 233. 
 
 Toombs, Robert, 166, 182. 
 
 Translations of Simms's works, 127, 
 153. 
 
 Travis, Col. William B., 215. 
 
 Trescot, William H., 165. 
 
 "Tricolor, The," 58. 
 
 Trollope's, Mrs. F. E., "Domestic 
 Manners of the Americans," re 
 viewed by Simms, 73. 
 
 Tucker, Beverley, 113, 165, 166, 176, 
 177, 181, 182, 217, 240, 245, 248 ; his 
 " George Balcombe," 177 ; " Par 
 tisan Leader," 177 ; his letters to 
 Simms, 182-188 ; Simms's letters to, 
 178-183. 
 
 Tuckerman, Henry T., 157, 165. 
 
 Tupper, Martin F., 320. 
 
 Tupper, Samuel Y., 64 note, 228, 235, 
 236, 320 note. 
 
 Turnbull, R. J.,56. 
 
 UNIVERSITY of Alabama, Simms's ad 
 dress at, 15, 140. 
 
 " VASCONSELOS " 206-209. 
 
 " Views and Reviews," 137, 138. 
 
 Virginia, her literature in 1825, 49 ; 
 
 politics in, 179, 181, 185, 186. See 
 
 Slavery. 
 Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 
 
 60.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 351 
 
 ' Voltmeier," 310, 312, 315. 
 
 WAR, the civil, Southern views of, 
 
 273, 274 ; its causes and results, 
 
 285-290 ; Simms's life during, 255- 
 
 285. See Slavery. 
 "War of the Rebellion, The," 261 
 
 note. 
 Ward's, J. Q. A., bust of Simms, 64, 
 
 323. 
 Washington, President George, 22, 40, 
 
 138, 172, 265. 
 
 Watts, W. Theodore, 145, 331. 
 Weathersf ord, William, 13. 
 Webster, Daniel, 27, 170, 227. 
 Weems, Rev. M. L., Simms'a essay 
 
 on, 137. 
 West Indies, schemes of annexation 
 
 of, 124. 
 
 Wetmore, Prosper M., 158. 
 Whaley, B. J., 228. 
 " Whig Review," 117 note. 
 Whittaker, Daniel K., 102, 103, 132. 
 White, Thomas W., 103, 114. 
 Whitefleld, Rev. George, 28. 
 " Wigwam and Cabin, The," 160-153, 
 
 160, 161. 
 Wilde, K. H., 50, HO, 158. 
 
 William and Mary College, 176. 
 
 Wilson, Gen. James Grant, 158, 219, 
 247 note, 320 note. 
 
 Wilson, Prof. John (Christopher 
 North), 156. 
 
 Wilson, William, 158. 
 
 Winsor's, Justin, "Narrative and 
 Critical History of America," 140 
 note. 
 
 Wirt, William, 49, 52, 246. 
 
 " Woodcraft." See " Sword and the 
 Distaff, The." 
 
 Woodlands, Simms's residence, de 
 scription of, 96-101 ; plantation los 
 ses at, 225 ; left to Simms, 239 ; in 
 war times, 268, 278, 279 ; first burn 
 ing of, 269-271 ; second burning of, 
 280, 283, 284 ; after the war, 293, 309, 
 312 ; Simms's last year at, 310-313. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 58, 145, 149, 
 235. 
 
 YANCBT, W. L., 166. 
 
 Teadon, Richard, 155, 210, 317. 
 
 " Yemassee, The," 63, 89-94, 102, 125, 
 
 127, 226, 241, 247. 
 Yonkers(N. Y.), Simms visits Lawson 
 
 at, 304.
 
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