The characters and incidents of that conflict in South Carolina are
graphically portrayed. _The Partisan_, the first of this historic series,
was published in 1835. _The Yemassee_ is an Indian story, in which the
character of the red man is less idealized than in Cooper's _Leather-
stocking Tales_. In _The Damsel of Darien_, the hero is Balboa, the
discoverer of the Pacific.

The verse of Simms is characterized by facile vigor rather than by fine
poetic quality. The following lines, which represent his style at its
best, bear a lesson for the American people to-day:--

"This the true sign of ruin to a race--
It undertakes no march, and day by day
Drowses in camp, or, with the laggard's pace,
Walks sentry o'er possessions that decay;
Destined, with sensible waste, to fleet away;--
For the first secret of continued power
Is the continued conquest;--all our sway
Hath surety in the uses of the hour;
If that we waste, in vain walled town and lofty tower!"


EDWARD COATE PINKNEY (1802-1828) died before his poetic gifts had reached
their full maturity. He was the son of the eminent lawyer and
diplomatist, William Pinkney, and was born in London, while his father
was American minister at the court of St. James. At the age of nine he
was brought home to America, and educated at Baltimore. He spent eight
years in the United States navy, during which period he visited the
classic shores of the Mediterranean. He was impressed particularly with
the beauty of Italy, and in one of his poems he says:--