If we had to rely upon one poem to keep alive the fame of Lanier, thinks his biographer, Mr. Edwin Mims, we “could single out ‘The Marshes of Glynn’ with assurance that there is something so individual and original about it, and that, at the same time, there is such a roll and range of verse in it, that it will surely live not only in American poetry but in English.” “He is the poet of the marshes as surely as Bryant is of the forests.” _Maurice Thompson and Mrs. Preston._--Our notice of Southern writers may conclude with Maurice Thompson and Mrs. Margaret Preston. James Maurice Thompson (1844-1901) is commonly associated with the Middle West, since he was born and died in Indiana. His early life, however, was spent in Kentucky and Georgia, he saw service in the Confederate Army, and much of his verse and prose carries the stamp of his experiences in the South and his acquaintance with Southern literature. He was a lawyer by profession, but by instinct a natural scientist. In 1885 he was appointed State Geologist of Indiana. From 1890 on he was connected with the New York _Independent_. His style was crisp and neat, sometimes over-elaborate; but he kept an eye on the thing he was talking about, so that in general what he has said of nature is very acceptable. His devotion to the pastimes of fishing and archery gave him a good deal of literary material. His extensive and exact knowledge of the ways of birds enters into many of his poems, as for example “An Early Bluebird.” The strain of regenerate patriotism in “Lincoln’s Grave” is the same that we find in Lanier. Mrs. Preston (1820-97) was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Junkin, founder of Lafayette College and afterward president of Washington and Lee University, in Virginia. Before her marriage, in 1857, she had done some writing. In 1866 she published “Beechenbrook, a Rhyme of the War”; in 1870, “Old Songs and New.” Her “Cartoons” (1875) and “Colonial Ballads” (1887) show her at her best. She has been styled “the greatest Southern poetess”; there have been few claimants to dispute the title. =Major Poets of New England.=--With this caption we return to the main stream of American verse, and reach the men whose lives and works may be said to justify a connected account of poetry in the United States. We shall take up Longfellow first. Whatever vicissitudes his literary standing has suffered, or is likely to suffer, he is bound for a long time to appear as the central figure among our poets.