In the South was another group of young writers, quite as able and enthusiastic as their northern contemporaries. Among these we note especially William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), whose _Yemassee_, _Border Beagles_, _Katherine Walton_ and many other historical romances of Colonial and Revolutionary days were of more than passing interest. He was a high-minded and most industrious writer, who produced over forty volumes of poems, essays, biographies, histories and tales; but he is now remembered chiefly by his novels, which won him the title of "the Cooper of the South." At least one of his historical romances should be read, partly for its own sake and partly for a comparison with Cooper's work in the same field. Thus _The Yemassee_ (1835), dealing with frontier life and Indian warfare, may be read in connection with Cooper's _The Deerslayer_ (1841), which has the same general theme; or _The Partisan_ (1835), dealing with the bitter struggle of southern Whigs and Tories during the Revolution, may well be compared with Cooper's _The Spy_ (1821), which depicts the same struggle in a northern environment. [Illustration: WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS] Other notable writers of the South during this period were Richard Henry Wilde the poet, now remembered by the song (from an unfinished opera) beginning, "My life is like the summer rose"; William Wirt, the essayist and biographer; and John Pendleton Kennedy, writer of essays and stories which contain many charming pictures of social life in Virginia and Maryland in the days "before the war." [Sidenote: NEW ENGLAND AND THE WEST] In New England was still another group, who fortunately avoided the name of any school. Sparks, Prescott, Ticknor, Story, Dana,--the very names indicate how true was Boston to her old scholarly traditions. Meanwhile Connecticut had its popular poet in James Gates Percival; Maine had its versatile John Neal; and all the northern states were reading the "goody goody" books of Peter Parley (Samuel Goodrich), the somewhat Byronic _Zophiel_ and other emotional poems of Maria Gowen Brooks (whom Southey called "Maria del Occidente"), and the historical romances of Catherine Sedgwick and Sarah Morton. [Illustration: JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY] The West also (everything beyond the Alleghenies was then the West) made its voice heard in the new literature. Timothy Flint wrote a very interesting _Journal_ from his missionary experiences, and a highly colored romance from his expansive imagination; and James Hall drew some vigorous and sympathetic pictures of frontier life in _Letters from the West_, _Tales of the Border_ and _Wilderness and Warpath_.