The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852.

by Various.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, LL.D.

A steadily growing reputation for almost twenty years, justified by the gradually increasing evidence of those latent, exhaustless, ever-unfolding energies which belong to genius, has inwoven the name of Simms with the literature of America, and made it part of the heirloom which our age will give to posterity. Asking and desiring nothing to which he could not prove himself justly ent.i.tled, he has wrested a reputation from difficulty and obstacle, and conquered an honorable acknowledgment from opposition and indifference. Even if we had not proofs of genius in the treasury of thought and imagination const.i.tuted by his writings, still the n.o.bility of the example of energy, perseverance, and high-toned hopefulness, which he has given, would deserve a grateful homage.

William Gilmore Simms is the second, and only surviving, of three brothers, sons of William Gilmore Simms, and Harriet Ann Augusta Singleton. His father was of a Scotch-Irish family, and his mother of a Virginia stock, her grandparents having removed to South Carolina long before the Revolution, in which they took an active part on the Whig side. He was born on the 17th of April, 1806. His mother died when he was an infant. His father, failing in business as a merchant, removed first to Tennessee, and then to Mississippi. While in Tennessee he volunteered and held a commission in the army of Jackson (in Coffee's brigade of mounted men), which scourged the Creeks and Seminoles after the ma.s.sacre of Fort Mims. Our author, left to the care of a grandmother, remained in Charleston, where he received an education which circ.u.mstances rendered exceedingly limited. He was denied a cla.s.sical training, but such characters stand little in need of the ordinary aids of the schoolmaster, and, with indomitable application, he has not only stored his mind with the richest literature, but has received an unsolicited tribute to his diligence and acquisitions, in the degree of Doctor of Laws, conferred upon him by the respectable University of Alabama.

At first it was designed that he should study medicine, but his inclination led him to the law. He was admitted to the bar of South Carolina when twenty-one, practised for a brief period, and became part proprietor of a daily newspaper, which, taking ground against nullification, ruined him--swallowing up a small maternal property, and involving him in a heavy debt which hung upon and embarra.s.sed him for a long time after. In 1832, he first visited the North, where he published Atalantis. Martin Faber followed in 1834, and periodically the long catalogue of his subsequent performances.

There are few writers who have exhibited such versatility of powers, combined with vigor, originality of copious and independent ideas, and that faculty of condensation which frequently by a single pregnant line suggests an expansive train of reflection. As a poet, he unites high imaginative powers with metaphysical thought--by which we mean that large discourse of reason which generalizes, and which seizes the universal, and perceives its relations to individual phenomena of nature and psychology. His poems abound in appropriate, felicitous, and original similes. His keen and fresh perception of nature, furnishes him with beautiful pictures, the truthfulness and clearness of which are admirably presented in the lucid language with which they are painted, and, in his expression of deep personal feelings, we find a n.o.ble union of sad emotion and manliness of tone. He draws from a full treasury of varied experience, active thought, close observation, just and original reflection, and a spirit which has drank deeply and lovingly from the gushing founts of nature. His inspiration is often kindled by the sunny and luxuriant scenery of the beautiful region to which he was born, and besides the freshness and glow which this imparts to his descriptive poetry, it makes him emphatically the poet of the South. Not only has he sung her peculiar natural aspects with the appreciation of a poet and the feeling of a son, but he has a claim to her grat.i.tude for having enshrined in melodious verse her ancient and fading traditions.

Mr. Simms commenced writing verses at a very early period. At eight years of age he rhymed the achievements of the American navy in the last war with Great Britain. At fifteen, he was a scribbler of fugitive verse for the newspapers, and before he was twenty-one he had published two collections of miscellaneous poetry, which his better taste and prudence subsequently induced him to suppress. Two other volumes of poems followed, in a more ambitious vein, which are also now beyond the reach of the collector, and were issued while he was engaged in the occupations of a newspaper editor and a student and pract.i.tioner of law.

These volumes were followed by Atalantis, a poem which has been highly praised by the best critics of our time.

As a prose writer, his vigorous, copious, and original ideas are clothed in a manly, flexible, pure, and lucid style. His first production, Martin Faber, succeeded Atalantis. It was the initial of a series of tales, which we may describe as of the metaphysical and pa.s.sionate or moral imaginative cla.s.s. These, with two or more volumes of shorter tales, are numerous, and perhaps among the most original of his writings. They comprise Martin Faber and other Tales, Castle Dismal, Confessions, or the Blind Heart, Carle Werner and other Tales, and the Wigwam and Cabin. There are other compositions belonging to this category, and, it may be, not inferior in merit to any of these, which have appeared in periodicals and annuals, but have not yet been collected by their author.

The first novel of Mr. Simms belonged to our border and domestic history. This was Guy Rivers; and to the same cla.s.s he has contributed largely, in Richard Hurdis, Border Beagles, Beauchampe, Helen Halsey, and other productions. In historical romance, he has written The Yema.s.see, the Damsel of Darien, Pelayo, and Count Julian, each in two volumes. The scenes of the two last are laid in Europe. His romances founded on our revolutionary history, are The Partisan, Mellichampe, and The Kinsmen. In biography and history, he is the author of The Life of Marion; The Life of Captain John Smith, founder of Virginia; a History of South Carolina; a Geography of the same State; a Life of Bayard; and a Life of General Greene.

It is impossible to enumerate accurately his poetical productions, as many, published in periodicals, have never been printed together; but the collection of his poems now in course of publication at Charleston, will supply a desideratum to the lovers of genuine American letters and art. Atalantis, Southern Pa.s.sages and Pictures, Donna Florida, Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, Areytos, Lays of the Palmetto, The Ca.s.sique of Accube and other Poems, Norman Maurice, and The City of the Silent, const.i.tuting distinct volumes, are, however, well known.

The orations of Mr. Simms, which have been published, comprise one delivered before the Erosophic Society of the Alabama University, ent.i.tled, The Social Principle--the true source of National Permanence; another before the town council and citizens of Aiken, South Carolina, on the Fourth of July, 1844, ent.i.tled, The Sources of American Independence; and one delivered before literary societies in Georgia, ent.i.tled Self-development.

As a writer of criticism, Mr. Simms is known by numerous articles contributed to periodicals; by a review of Mrs. Trolloppe, in the American Quarterly, and of Miss Martineau in the Southern Literary Messenger (both subsequently republished in pamphlets, and received with general approval), as well as by many others of equal merit--a selection from which, wholly devoted to American topics, has been published in two volumes, under the t.i.tle of Views and Reviews in American History and Fiction.

Scarcely a production of Mr. Simms has been unmarked by a cordial reception from the best literary journals; and the praise of the London _Metropolitan_ and _Examiner_--the former when under the conduct of Thomas Campbell, the latter of Albany Fonblanque--was generously bestowed, especially on _Atalantis_; of which the _Metropolitan_ said, "What has the most disappointed us is, that it is so thoroughly English: the construction, the imagery, and, with a very few exceptions, the idioms of the language, are altogether founded on our own scholastic and cla.s.sical models;" and Fonblanque, in reviewing a tale by Simms, ent.i.tled, _Murder will Out_, said, "But all we intended to say about the originality displayed in the volume has been forgotten in the interest of the last story of the book, _Murder will Out_. This is an American ghost story, and, without exception, the best we ever read. Within our limits, we could not, with any justice, describe the whole course of its incident, and it is in that, perhaps, its most marvellous effect lies.

It is the _rationale_ of the whole matter of such appearances, given with fine philosophy and masterly interest. We never read any thing more perfect or more consummately told."

But the testimony of the critical press, or even of the successful sale of an author's works, is not so suggestive of merit as the fact that his productions have entered into the popular mind; and this tribute Mr.

Simms has received in the fact that in regions which he has identified with legends created for them by his own genius, localities of his different incidents are pointed out with a sincere belief in their historical verity. The dramatic powers manifested in his novels, have been still more largely displayed in his _Norman Maurice_, a play of singular originality, in design, character, and execution, the nervous language and felicitous turns of expression in which remind us of the best of the old dramatists. We have heretofore expressed in the _International_ a conviction that Norman Maurice is the best American drama that has yet been published--the most American, the most dramatic, the most original.

As a member of the Legislature of his native State, and on various public occasions, Mr. Simms has vindicated a t.i.tle to fame as an orator; and a recent nomination for the presidency of the South Carolina College, although he declined being a candidate, is an evidence of the impression which his ability, information, and high character have produced on his fellow citizens.

His intense intellectual activity, united with a habitually reflective and philosophical mode of thought, and unwearied laboriousness, enable him to accomplish an almost incredible amount of literary labor. The catalogue of his works which is subjoined, gives but an inadequate idea of what he has really performed; for multifarious productions, many of them of the highest order in their respective cla.s.ses, are scattered in the pages of periodicals, or still in ma.n.u.script; while the unceasing demands on his pen, with his arduous editorship, prevent him from accomplishing many fruitful designs, whose inception he has hinted in various ways. To his intellectual gifts, he unites a brave, generous nature, a kindly, and strong heart, a genial, impulsive, yet faithful and determined disposition, warm affection and friendship, a spirit to do and to endure, and a soul as much elevated above the petty envies and jealousies which too often deform the _genus irritabile_, as it is in large sympathy with the beautiful, the true, the just--with humanity and with nature. P.

_CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS BY MR. SIMMS._

1. Lyrical and other Poems: 18mo, pp. 208, Charleston, Ellis & Noufvillle, 1827.

2. Early Lays: 12mo. pp. 108, Charleston, A. E. Miller, 1827.

3. The Vision of Cortes, and other Poems: Charleston, J. S.

Burgess.

4. The Tri-Color, or Three Days of Blood in Paris, 1830: Charleston.

5. Atalantis, a Story of the Sea: New-York, J. & J. Harper, 1832.

6. Martin Faber, a Tale: New-York, J. & J. Harper, 1833.

7. The Book of My Lady, a Melange: Phila., Key & Biddle, 1833.

8. Guy Rivers, a Tale of Georgia: 2 vols. 12mo., New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1834.

9. The Yema.s.see, a Romance of Carolina: 2 vols., New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1835.

10. The Partisan, a Tale of the Revolution: 2 vols., New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1836.

11. Mellichampe, a Legend of the Santee: 2 vols., New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1836.

12. Martin Faber, and other Tales: a new edition, 2 vols., New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1836.

13. Pelayo, a Story of the Goth: 2 vols., New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1838.

14. Carl Werner, an Imaginative Story, with other Tales of the Imagination: 2 vols., New-York, George Adlard, 1838.

15. Richard Hurdis, or the Avenger of Blood, a Tale of Alabama: 2 vols., Philadelphia, Carey & Hart, 1838.

16. Southern Pa.s.sages and Pictures: 1 vol., New-York, G.

Adlard, 1839.

17. The Damsel of Darien: 2 vols., Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard.

18. Border Beagles, a Tale of Mississippi: 2 vols., Philadelphia, Carey & Hart, 1840.

19. The Kinsman, or the Black Riders of the Congaree: 2 vols., Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 1841.

20. Confession, or the Blind Heart: 2 vols., Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard.

21. Beauchampe, or the Kentucky Tragedy, a Tale of Pa.s.sion: 2 vols., Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 1842.

22. History of South Carolina: 1 vol. 12mo., Charleston, Babc.o.c.k & Co.

23. Geography of South Carolina: 1 vol. 12mo., Charleston, Babc.o.c.k.

24. Life of Francis Marion: 1 vol., New-York, J. & H. G.

Langley.

25. Life of Capt. John Smith, the Founder of Virginia: 1 vol., New-York, Langley.

26. Count Julian: 2 vols. 8vo., New-York, Taylor & Co., 1845.