followed up the thorny path by many who
stopped half-way, turned back, or sunk forgotten even before reaching
that far.

Few, indeed, of their works ever went beyond their own boundaries; and
those few rarely sent back a record. Exceptions there were, however,
who pressed Mr. Simms hard for his position on the topmost peak; and
most of these adventurous climbers were of the softer sex.

John Esten Cooke had written a very clever novel of the olden society,
called "Virginia Comedians." It had promised a brilliant future, when
his style and method should both ripen; a promise that had not, so far,
been kept by two or three succeeding ventures launched on these
doubtful waters. Hon. Jere Clemens, of Alabama, had commenced a series
of strong, if somewhat convulsive, stories of western character.
"Mustang Gray" and "Bernard Lile," scenting strongly of camp-fire and
pine-top, yet had many advantages over the majority of successful
novels, then engineered by northern publishers. Marion Harland, as her
_nom de plume_ went, was, however, the most popular of southern writers.
Her stories of Virginia home-life had little pretension to the higher
flights of romance; but they were pure, graphic and not unnatural
scenes from every-day life. They introduced us to persons we knew, or
might have known; and the people read them generally and liked them.
Mrs. Ritchie (Anna Cora Mowatt) was also prolific of novels, extracted
principally from her fund of stage experience. Piquant and bright, with
a dash of humor and more than a dash of sentiment, Mrs. Ritchie's books
had many admirers and more friends. The South-west, too, had given us
the "Household of Bouverie" and "Beulah;" and it was reserved for Miss
Augusta Evans, author of the latter, to furnish the _only_ novel--almost
the only book--published within the South during continuance of the
war. The only others I can now recall--emanating from southern pens and
entirely made in the South--were Mrs. A. de V. Chaudron's translation
of Muelbach's "Joseph II.," and Dr. Wm. Sheppardson's collection of "War
Poetry of the South."

This is not an imposing array of prose writers, and it may be
incomplete; but it is very certain that there are not many omissions.

In poetry, the warmer clime of the South would naturally have been
expected to excel; but, while the list of rhymsters was longer than
Leporello's, the _poets_ hardly exceeded in number the writers of
prose. Thompson, Meek, Simms, H