With this brief sketch of his life, let us turn to Lanier's works, and first to those in prose. At the head of the list comes `Tiger-lilies', a novel written within three weeks and published immediately thereafter, in 1867. Under the figure of "a strange, enormous, terrible flower," the seed of which he hopes may perish beyond resurrection, the author pictures the horror of war in general and of the Civil War in particular. An entertaining love-story runs through the book, the plot of which space does not allow me to detail. In execution the novel has grave defects: it lacks unity; the characters talk as learnedly as Lanier afterward wrote of music; and at times, as in the oft-quoted picture of the war,*1* the style is grandiloquent; owing to which blemishes the author wisely discouraged its republication. But, in spite of these defects, the book has one very strongly put scene,*2* the interview between Smallin and his deserter brother, and several beautiful passages*3* that distinctly proclaim the high-souled poet. -- *1* `Tiger-lilies', p. 115 ff. *2* `Tiger-lilies', p. 149 ff. *3* That on "love" (p. 26) is quoted later. -- Lanier's next publication, `Florida: Its Scenery, Climate, and History', was written by commission of the Atlantic Coast Line, and appeared in 1876. To use the author's own epithet, `Florida' is "a spiritualized guide-book". Exclusive of the 1877 volume of `Poems', Lanier's next original work was `The Science of English Verse', which in lecture-form was delivered to the students of the Johns Hopkins in the winter of 1879 and was published in 1880. According to competent critics, the book gives as searching an investigation of the science of verse on its formal side as is to be had in any language. Since the treatise is so evidently an epoch-making one, I regret that the technicality of the subject forbids my attempting in this connection even a brief exposition* of its principles. I can say only that Lanier treats verse in the terms of music; that, according to the promise of the preface, he gives "an account of the true relations of music and verse"; and that in so doing he has given us the best working theory for English verse from Caedmon to Tennyson. This is a high estimate, but it is by no means so high as that of the lamented poet-professor, Edmund Rowland Sill, who said of `The Science of English Verse', "It is the only work that has ever made any approach to a rational view of the subject. Nor are the standard ones overlooked in making this assertion."** -- * This may be found in Professor Tolman's article, cited in the `Bibliography'. ** Quoted by Tolman. --