THE author of "Guy Rivers," "Southern Pas sages and Pictures," etc., was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the spring of 1807. His mother died during his infancy, and his father soon after emigrated to one of the western territories, leaving him under the guardianship of a grandmother, who superintended his early education. When not more than nine or ten years old, he began to write verses; at fifteen he was a contributor to the poetical department of the gazettes printed near his home; and at eighteen he published his first volume, entitled Lyrical and other Poems,' which was followed in the next two years by "Early Lays," and "The Vision of Cortez and other Pieces," and in 1830, by "The Tricolor, or Three Days of Blood in Paris." In each of these four volumes there were poetical ideas, and occasionally well-finished verses; but they are worthy of little regard, except as indications of the early tendency of the author's mind.

When twenty-one years old, Mr. SIMMS was admitted to the bar, and began to practise his profession in his native district; but feeling a deep interest in the political questions which then agitated the country, he soon abandoned the courts, and purchased a daily gazette at Charleston, which he edited for several years, with industry, integrity, and ability.* It was, however, unsuccessful, and he lost by it all his property, as well as the prospective earnings of several years. His ardour was not lessened by this failure, and, confident of success, he determined to retrieve his fortune by authorship. He had been married at an early age; his wife, as well as his father, was now dead; and no domestic ties binding him to Charleston, he in the spring of 1832 visited for the first time the northern states. After travelling over the most interesting portions of the country, he paused at the rural village of Hingham, in Massachusetts, and there prepared for the press his principal poetical work, "Atalantis, a Story of the Sea," which was published at New York in the following winter. This is an imaginative story, in the dramatic form; its plot is exceedingly simple, but effectively managed, and it contains much beautiful imagery, and fine description. While a vessel glides over a summer sea, LEON, one of the principal characters, and his sister ISABEL, hear a benevolent spirit of the air warning them of the designs of a sea-god to lure them into peril.

Leo. Didst hear the strain it utter'd, ISABEL?
Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,
From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not?
Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;
For, by the chart which now before me lies,

The Charleston City Gazette, conducted by Mr. SIMMS, was, I believe, the first journal in South Carolina that took ground against the principle of nullification.

Thy own unpractised eye may well discern
The wide extent of the ocean-shoreless all.

The land, for many a league, to the eastward hangs,
And not a point beside it.

Isa. Wherefore, then,

Should come this voice of warning?

Leon. From the deep:

It hath its demons as the earth and air,
All tributaries to the master-fiend
That sets their springs in motion. This is one,
That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,
So to divert our course, that we may strike
The very rocks he fain would warn us from.
Isa. A subtle sprite: and, now I think of it,
Dost thou remember the old story told
BY DIAZ ORTIS, the lame mariner,

Of an adventure in the Indian Seas,
Where he made one with JOHN of Portugal,
Touching a woman of the ocean wave,

That swam beside the barque, and sang strange songs
Of riches in the waters; with a speech
So winning on the senses, that the crew
Grew all infected with the melody;

And, but for a good father of the church,
Who made the sign of the cross, and offer'd up
Befitting prayers, which drove the fiend away,
They had been tempted by her cunning voice
To leap into the ocean.

Leon. I do, I do!

And, at the time, I do remember me,

I made much mirth of the extravagant tale,
As a deceit of the reason: the old man
Being in his second childhood, and at fits
Wild, as you know, on other themes than this.

Isa. I never more shall mock at marvellous things, Such strange conceits hath after-time found true, That once were themes for jest. I shall not smile At the most monstrous legend.

Leon. Nor will I:

To any tale of mighty wonderment

I shall bestow my ear, nor wonder more;
And every fancy that my childhood bred,
In vagrant dreams of frolic, I shall look
To have, without rebuke, my sense approve.
Thus, like a little island in the sea,
Girt in by perilous waters, and unknown
To all adventure, may be yon same cloud,
Specking, with fleecy bosom, the blue sky,
Lit by the rising moon. There we may dream,
And find no censure in an after day-
Throng the assembled fairies, perched on beams,
And riding on their way triumphantly.
There gather the coy spirits. Many a fay,
Roving the silver sands of that same isle,
Floating in azure ether, plumes her wing
Of ever-frolicsome fancy, and pursues-
While myriads, like herself, do watch the chase--
Some truant sylph, through the infinitude
Of their uncircumscribed and rich domain.
There sport they through the night, with mimicry
Of strife and battle; striking their tiny shields
And gathering into combat; meeting fierce,
With lip compress'd and spear aloft, and eye
Glaring with fight and desperate circumstance;
Then sudden-in a moment all their wrath
Mellow'd to friendly terms of courtesy-
Throwing aside the dread array, and link'd
Each in his foe's embrace. Then comes the dance,
The grateful route, the wild and musical pomp,

The long procession o'er fantastic realms

Of cloud and moonbeam, through the enamour'd night,
Making it all one revel. Thus the eye,
Breathed on by fancy, with enlarged scope,
Through the protracted and deep hush of night
May note the fairies, coursing the lazy hours
In various changes, and without fatigue.

A fickle race, who tell their time by flowers,
And live on zephyrs, and have stars for lamps,
And night-dews for ambrosia; perch'd on beams,
Speeding through space, even with the scattering light
On which they feed and frolic.

Leon. A marvellous shape, that with the billow curls, In gambols of the deep, and yet is not

Its wonted burden; for beneath the waves

I mark a gracious form, though nothing clear
Of visage I discern. Again it speaks.

The ship is wrecked, and ATALANTIS, a fairy, wandering along the beach with an attendant, NEA, discovers the inanimate form of LEON clinging to a spar.

But what is here,
Grasping a shaft, and lifelessly stretch'd out?

Nea. One of the creatures of that goodly barque-
Perchance the only one of many men,

That, from their distant homes, went forth in her,
And here have perish'd.

Atal. There is life in him

And his heart swells beneath my hand, with pulse
Fitful and faint, returning now, now gone,
That much I fear it may not come again.
How very young he is-how beautiful!
Made, with a matchless sense of what is true,
In manly grace and chisell'd elegance;
And features, rounded in as nice a mould
As our own, NEA. There, his eye unfolds-
Stand away, girl, and let me look on him!

It cannot be, that such a form as this,

So lovely and compelling, ranks below

The creatures of our kingdom. He is one,

That, 'mongst them all, might well defy compareOutshining all that shine!

Nea. He looks as well,

In outward seeming, as our own, methinks

And yet, he may be but a shaped thing,
Wanting in every show of that high sense
Which makes the standard of true excellence.
Atal. O, I am sure there is no want in him-
The spirit must be true, the sense be high,
The soul as far ascending, strong and bright,
As is the form he wears, and they should be
Pleased to inhabit-'t were a fitting home!
Breathe on him, NEA. Fan him with thy wing,
And so arouse him. I would have him speak,
And satisfy my doubt. Stay, yet a while-
Now, while his senses sleep, I'll place my lip
Upon his own-it is so beautiful!

Such lips should give forth music-such a sweet
Should have been got in heaven-the produce there
Of never-blighted gardens.

[Kisses him.

Soon after the appearance of "Atalantis," Mr. SIMMS published, in the "American Quarterly,” a review of Mrs. TROLLOPE'S "Domestic Manners of the Americans," which was reprinted, in several editions, in this country and in England; and in i 1833 appeared his first romance, Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal," parts of which had been printed several years before in a magazine conducted by him in Charleston. In the same year he published The Book of My Lady,” and, in the summer of 1834, "Guy Rivers, a Tale of Georgia," which was followed by "The Yemassee," "The Partisan," "Mellichampe,” “Pelayo,” “Carl Werner," "The Damsel of Darien," "The Kinsman,” "The History of South Carolina," "The Blind Heart," and numerous sketches, reviews, and misceilanies, in the periodicals. Several other works | have been generally attributed to him; though the amount of his acknowledged writings seems to be as great as one man could have produced since he commenced his career as an author. His novels have been very popular, particularly in the southern states, the scenery and history of which, several of them are designed to illustrate. They exhibit considerable dramatic power, and some of the characters are drawn with great skill.

His "Southern Passages and Pictures" appeared in New York, in 1839, and he has since published "Florida," in five cantos, and many shorter poems. | They are on a great variety of subjects, and in almost every measure. Among them are several very spirited ballads, founded on Indian traditions and on incidents in the war for independence. His style is free and melodious, his fancy fertile and inventive, and his imagery generally well chosen, though its range is limited; but sometimes his rhymes are imperfect, and his meaning not easily understood. He is strongly attached to his coun try, but his sympathies seem to me to be too local. The rivers, forests, savannas, and institutions of the south, he regards with feelings similar to those with which WHITTIER looks upon the mountains, lakes, and social systems of New England.

Mr. SIMMS is again married, and now resides in the vicinity of Charleston. He is in the meridian of life and energy, and is constantly writing and adding to his reputation. He is retiring in his habits, goes little into society, and keeps aloof from all controversies; finding happiness in the bosom of his family, among his books, and in correspondence and personal intercourse with his literary friends. He is a fine specimen of the true southern gentleman, and combines in himself the high quali ties attributed to that character.

THE SLAIN EAGLE.

THE eye that mark'd thy flight with deadly aim, Had less of warmth and splendour than thine own; The form that did thee wrong could never claim The matchless vigour which thy wing hath shown; Yet art thou in thy pride of flight o'erthrown; And the far hills that echoed back thy scream, As from storm-gathering clouds thou sent'st it down,

Shall see no more thy red-eyed glances stream For their far summits round, with strong and terrible gleam.

Lone and majestic monarch of the cloud! No more I see thee on the tall cliff's brow, When tempests meet, and from their watery shroud Pour their wild torrents on the plains below, Lifting thy fearless wing, still free to go, True in thy aim, undaunted in thy flight, As seeking still, yet scorning, every foeShrieking the while in consciousness of might, To thy own realm of high and undisputed light.

Thy thought was not of danger then-thy pride Left thee no fear. Thou hadst gone forth in storms, And thy strong pinions had been bravely tried Against their rush. Vainly their gathering forms Had striven against thy wing. Such conflict warms The nobler spirit; and thy joyful shriek Gave token that the strife itself had charms For the born warrior of the mountain peak, He of the giant brood, sharp fang, and bloody beak.

How didst thou then, in very mirth, spread far Thy pinions' strength!-with freedom that became Audacious license, with the winds at war, Striding the yielding clouds that girt thy frame, And, with a fearless rush that naught could tame, Defying earth-defying all that mars

The flight of other wings of humbler name;
For thee, the storm had impulse, but no bars
To stop thy upward flight, thou pilgrim of the stars!

Morning above the hills, and from the ocean,
Ne'er leap'd abroad into the fetterless blue
With such a free and unrestrained motion,
Nor shook from her ethereal wing the dew
That else had clogg'd her flight and dimm'd her
view,

With such calm effort as 't was thine to wearBending with sunward course erect and true, When winds were piping high and lightnings near, Thy day-guide all withdrawn, through fathomless fields of air.

The moral of a chosen race wert thou,

In such proud fight. From out the ranks of menThe million moilers, with earth-cumber'd brow, That slink, like coward tigers to their den, Each to his hiding-place and corner thenOne mighty spirit watch'd thee in that hour, Nor turn'd his lifted heart to earth again; Within his soul there sprang a holy power, And he grew strong to sway, whom tempests made

not cower.

Watching, he saw thy rising wing. In vain, From his superior dwelling, the fierce sun Shot forth his brazen arrows, to restrain The audacious pilgrim, who would gaze upon The secret splendours of his central throne; Proudly, he saw thee to that presence fly, And, Eblis-like, unaided and alone, His dazzling glories seck, his power defy, Raised to thy god's own face, meanwhile, thy rebel eye.

And thence he drew a hope, a hope to soar, Even with a wing like thine. His daring glance Sought, with as bold a vision, to explore The secret of his own deliveranceThe secret of his wing-and to advance To sovereign sway like thine-to rule, to rise Above his race, and nobly to enhance Their empire as his own-to make the skies, The extended earth, far seas, and solemn stars, his prize.

He triumphs-and he perishes like thee!
Scales the sun's heights, and mounts above the
winds,

Breaks down the gloomy barrier, and is free!
The worm receives his winglet: he unbinds
The captive thought, and in its centre finds
New barriers, and a glory in his gaze;

He mocks, as thou, the sun!-but scaly blinds Grow o'er his vision, till, beneath the daze, From his proud height he falls, amid the world's

amaze.

And thou, brave bird! thy wing hath pierced the cloud,

The storm had not a battlement for thee; But, with a spirit fetterless and proud, Thou hast soar'd on, majestically free, To worlds, perchance, which men shall never see! Where is thy spirit now? the wing that bore? Thou hast lost wing and all, save liberty! Death only could subdue-and that is o'er: Alas! the very form that slew thee should deplore!

A proud exemplar hath been lost the proud, And he who struck thee from thy fearless flightThy noble loneliness, that left the crowd, To seek, uncurb'd, that singleness of height Which glory aims at with unswerving sightHad learn'd a nobler toil. No longer base With lowliest comrades, he had given his might, His life that had been cast in vilest placeTo raise his hopes and homes-to teach and lift

his race.

"Tis he should mourn thy fate, for he hath lost The model of dominion. Not for him The mighty eminence, the gathering host That worships, the high glittering pomps that dim, The bursting homage and the hailing hymn: He dies he hath no life, that, to a star, Rises from dust and sheds a holy gleam To fight the struggling nations from afar, And show, to kindred souls, where fruits of glory

are.