to him, professionally, I was at his command. All the ability I possess, increased by more than fifty years of study and experience, would have been cheerfully exerted to have saved him, for in saving him I believe I would have been saving the honor of my country. I received a characteristic reply in terms of friendship and grateful thanks. He wrote that he did not think the prosecution would take place. Hearing, however, some time after, that the prosecution would commence at Richmond, I went at once to that city and saw his legal adviser, Hon. William H. McFarland, one of the ablest men of the bar of Virginia. Mr. McFarland showed me a copy of a letter from General Lee to General Grant, enclosing an application for a pardon which he desired General Grant to present to the President, but telling him not to present it if any steps had been taken for his prosecution, as he was willing to stand the test. He wrote that he had understood by the terms of surrender at Appomattox that he and all his officers and men were to be protected. That letter, I am glad to say, raised General Lee higher in my esteem. General Grant at once replied, and he showed his reply to me. He wrote that he had seen the President, and protested against any steps being taken against General Lee, and had informed him that he considered his honor and the honor of the nation pledged to him. The President became satisfied, and no proceedings were ever taken. General Grant transmitted to the President the application of General Lee for pardon, indorsed with his most earnest approval. No pardon was granted. He did not need it here, and when he appears before that great tribunal before which we must all be called, he will find he has no account to settle there. No soldier who followed General Lee

could have felt more grief and sympathy at his grave than I would, could I have been present upon the mournful occasion of his burial. I lamented his loss as a private loss, and still more as a public loss. I knew that his example would continue to allay the passions aroused by the war, and which I was not surprised were excited by some acts in that war. I love my country. I am jealous of her honor. I cherish her good name, and I am proud of the land of my birth. I forbear to criticise the lives and characters of her high officers and servants, but I can say with truth that, during the late war, the laws of humanity were forgotten, and the higher orders of God were trodden under foot.

The resolutions need no support which human lips can by human language give. Their subject is their support. The name of Lee appeals at once, and strongly, to every true heart in this land and throughout the world. Let political partisans, influenced by fanaticism and the hope of political plunder, find fault with and condemn us. They will be forgotten when the name of Lee will be resplendent with immortal glory.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, in the course of nature my career upon earth must soon terminate. God grant that when the day of my death comes I may look up to heaven with that confidence and faith which the life and character of Robert E. Lee gave him! He died trusting in God, as a good man, with a good life and a pure conscience. He was consoled with the knowledge that the religion of Christ had ordered all his ways, and he knew that the verdict of God upon the account he would have to render in heaven would be one of judgment seasoned with

mercy. He had a right to believe that when God passed judgment upon the account of his life, though He would find him an erring human being, He would find virtue enough and religious faith enough to save him from any other verdict than that of "Well done, good and faithful servant." The monument will be raised, and when it is raised many a man will visit Richmond to stand beside it, to do reverence to the remains it may cover, and to say, "Here lie the remains of one of the noblest men who ever lived or died in America!"

THREE SOUTHERN POETS.

TIMROD, LANIER, TABB.

It must always be a source of keen regret that the first two of these poets died at so early an age: Timrod laid down his pen at thirty-eight and Lanier at thirty-nine, and the poetry they left is but a partial fulfilment of their genius.

HENRY TIMROD was born in Charleston, S. C., December 8, 1829, of a German family that was prominent there before the Revolution. He studied at the University of Georgia, and though his course was cramped by lack of means and interrupted by sickness, he stored his mind with classic learning and the wealth of English letters. He coveted a professor's chair, and was well equipped for one, but was forced to content himself with the work of a private teacher. His leisure hours were given to literature, and in 1860 he published a small volume of poems through Ticknor & Fields, of Boston. It was warmly received, both in the North and in the South, and seemed a sure portent of success; but thirteen years passed before another volume appeared under his name, when the poet had been six years in his grave.

An ardent Carolinian, Timrod enlisted in the Confederate army; he was physically too weak, however, for service in the field, and became a war correspondent. In 1864 he was made editor of the South Carolinian, at Co

lumbia, but he was already broken in health, and lived only till October 6, 1867. Since his death several editions of his collected poems have been issued. Spring, The Cotton Boll, and some of his stirring war lyrics, like Carolina, show him at his best.

SIDNEY LANIER was a native of Georgia, having been born at Macon, February 3, 1842. He graduated from Oglethorpe College, Midway, Ga., at the age of eighteen, just before the outbreak of the Civil War, and when the State called her sons to arms, he was one of the first to enlist. Captured on a blockade-runner and imprisoned for some months, he underwent hardships that probably had much to do with the shattering of his health. In later years he suffered greatly from sickness, and often did his literary work under heavy physical disadvantages.

After the war he was for a time a teacher in Alabama, and then practised law in Macon, with his father. Later he made his home in Baltimore, Md. There he delivered lectures at Johns Hopkins University and the Peabody Institute, and played first flute in the Peabody symphony concerts. His reputation as a flute-player was very high; music, indeed, was one of the passions of his life, and exercised sometimes a controlling influence over the form of his verse. A just estimate of his poetry is impossi ble without due regard to his views on rhythmical struc

ture.

Lanier's first published book was Tiger Lilies, a novel of army life, issued in 1867. He also wrote several books for boys, but it was as a poet that he made his most valuable contributions to American literature. In 1876, at the suggestion of Bayard Taylor, he was invited to write a cantata for the opening of the Centennial Exposition. Among his finest and most popular poems are The Song of the Chattahoochee, The Marshes of Glynn, The StirrupCup, and The Mocking-Bird.