blessing. As far as it goes, "When the co'n pone's hot" is great
precisely in the same lines that the "Cotter's Saturday Night" is
great.

Mr. Dunbar has also written a number of novels and short stories. It
has not been my good fortune to see "The Stories from Dixie;" but the
novels I have bought and read. If there were no Charles Chestnut, Mr.
Dunbar's novels would have to be discussed in this connection, and he
would have to be put down as the very first Negro novel writer,
mainly, however, because there would be no other; but with Mr.
Chestnut in the field, no true admirer of Mr. Dunbar will ever discuss
the prolific diffusions of his, bearing the name novels, in any
connection with Dunbar, the poet. There is only enough space left in
this article for the poets, to barely mention the names of Mr. Daniel
Webster Davis, of Manchester, Virginia, and Mr. James D. Corrothers of
Red Bank, New Jersey, and to give a selection from each and let their
poems speak for them as writers. Both of them have received notice in
the best magazines and favorable criticism elsewhere. Both owe their
distinction mainly to their work in dialectic verse which, I fear, is
too much like the "ragtime" music, considered quite the proper
dressing for Negro distinction in the poetic art.

Here is to "De Biggis' Piece ub Pie," by Mr. Davis:

"When I was a little boy
I set me down to cry,
Bekase my little brudder
Had de biggis' piece ub pie.
But when I had become a man
I made my min' to try
An' hustle roun' to git myself
De biggis' piece ub pie.

"An' like in bygone chil'ish days,
De worl' is hustlin' roun'
To git darselbes de biggis' slice
Ub honor an' renown;
An' ef I fails to do my bes',
But stan' aroun' an' cry,
Dis ol' worl' will git away
Wid bof de plate an' pie.

"An' eben should I git a slice
I mus' not cease to try,
But keep a-movin' fas' es life
To hol' my piece ub pie.
Dis ruff ol' worl' has little use
Fur dem dat chance to fall,
An' while youze gittin' up ag'in
'Twill take de plate an' all."

The one more selection from Mr. Davis will show him as a poet outside
of dialect:

A ROSE.

"The rose of the garden is given to me,
And, to double its value, 'twas given by thee;
Its lovely bright tints to my eyesight is borne,
Like the kiss of a fairy or blush of morn.

"Too soon must