With greater interest, the dominant motive of the author, so frankly stated, may now be joined, without comment, to his mournful retrospect of his life work. The first is found in the lines from Mrs. Hemans inscribed on the title page of "Backwoods Poems." ----"I'd leave behind Something immortal of my heart and mind." This is his salutatory. In the closing stanza of the last poem "Unfinished," the retrospect is made, and his valedictory delivered thus: "My canvas is not full; a vacant space Remains untouched. To fill it were not meet-- I'll leave it so--like all that bears a trace Of me on earth--Unfinished--incomplete." To Hayne, Lanier, and Maurice Thompson, S. Newton Berryhill must yield in subtlety of melody and penetrative insight into nature's deeper meanings. Timrod and Ticknor in their war lyrics may, at times, have struck the martial chord with stronger and more dextrous hand; but it may still be justly claimed that the best of the "Backwoods Poems" compare favorably with much or even most of the work of these more famous Southern poets. If in this paper this claim has been established, its purpose is abundantly fulfilled, and the "Backwoods Poet" in environment and achievement stands out a unique figure in the literature of the State. MISSISSIPPI AS A FIELD FOR THE STUDENT OF LITERATURE. BY W. L. WEBER. Dr. Sam Johnson is sponsor for the stock illustration of history reduced to its lowest terms. His story is with reference to the Natural History of Iceland by the Danish Historian Horrebow. The learned Dane undertook to write an exhaustive account of the wintry island. Chapter Seventy-two of this history, so the story goes, had as its title the attractive phrase, Concerning Snakes. The Chapter itself, long famous for telling the whole truth in the fewest words, consists of one sentence: There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island. With similar parsimony of words, if we are willing to adopt one of the almost universally accepted definitions in which beauty and permanence and universality are made the final tests of literature--if we are willing to accept so narrow a definition we may find ourselves able to write the history of Mississippi literature in one sentence. Such a history would be--in the brutal directness of Horrebow's phrase: There is no literature to be met with throughout the whole State.