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 title 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 classes, are scattered in the pages of periodicals, or still in manuscript; 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.

PETERSON & HUMPHREY'S CARPET HOUSE.

THE PALACES OF TRADE.

It were well if not only William B. Astor, Stephen Whitney, the heirs of Peter Stuyvesant (of blessed memory), and others who own real estate in this city, and likewise all mayors, common councilmen, and others in authority, were endued with more taste, with a higher regard to the general interest, and a juster sense of the matters that pertain to a good administration, so that it might be said in after times that the beneficence of the Creator (who in things natural has done more for ours than for any other city), had been seconded by the pious wisdom of the creature, and Manhattan pointed to as in all respects the metropolis of the world. Why not? If the very stones in the streets of London, Paris, and Vienna, were turned to pure gold, they would not purchase for those cities advantages that should be compared with such as we already possessed by our beautiful island—a giant mosaic, set in emerald, studding the bosom of Nature.

Whatever may be said by our excellent neighbor, the minister of the dingy-looking red brick meeting-house round the corner, it is not less a work of piety to create any work of beauty—a beautiful house, or shop, or poem, for