VOL. IV.

No. 1.

WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE.

WILLIA

LLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE inherits an honored name and poetic power of a high order from his distinguished father; while gentleness and all the graces of Southern chivalry are blended in his nature on both sides of his house from ancestral veins as pure and purple as ever flowed in pulsing currents from the crested turrets of old England, the bonny braes of Scotland and the fair flowerland of France. He is the only son of Paul Hamilton Hayne, the greatest of all Southern poets, and although born in his father's old home and birthplace, Charleston, S. C., March 11, 1856, he has resided the greater part of his life at Copse Hill, near Augusta, Ga., whither the family moved in 1866 when their handsome home and property were swept away by the fortunes of war. His post-office is in the suburban village and famous health resort of Grovetown, Ga., but the city of Augusta, where rests the consecrated dust of the father, also lays appreciative and affectionate claim to the son.

On account of his delicate constitution young Hayne received his education at home, with the exception of a few months' study at Dr. Porter's academy in Charleston. He is not, therefore, a master of the exact sciences or ancient classics, but it would be difficult to find a better student of English literature anywhere, or a more thorough master of the King's English in critical composition or musical forms of expression. At the age of fourteen he contributed creditable sketches to Burke's Weekly, an old-time Georgia periodical, but his literary career began in reality in 1879. His first poem of special value appeared in the Youth's Companion in 1881, and was written on the death of Sidney Lanier. He has always been an admirer of Lanier's, and paid another noble tribute to that musical genius in a commemorative poem written for the occasion, and read by himself, at the unveiling of the bust of Lanier in Macon, Ga., October 17, 1890. This is considered by many the

loftiest in style and sentiment of Mr. Hayne's productions. His generous tributes to other writers, and his courteous treatment of all with whom he comes in contact, are notable characteristics of this great-hearted and gentle poet. While he excels in all lyrical forms of verse, Mr. Hayne has been especially successful and deservedly praised as a nature poet. And while he himself regards Robert Burns Wilson as clearly in the lead of all his contemporaries in virility and noble descriptions in nature, it may fairly be said that even that brilliant and ambitious exponent of the divine art does not surpass Mr. Hayne in this realm. His descriptions are life-like, living, especially in his shorter poems, which have won him critical commendation and popular praise. His quatrains are gems of purest ray, clear-cut as any crystal, and in this style of verse he is not surpassed even by his venerated father or by that other prince of poets, Thomas Bailey Aldrich. He does not care for narrative forms or blank verse, unless especially fine. The octo-syllabic is a favorite style of versification with him. "A Band of Bluebirds" is a favorite poem of his, very beautiful and oft praised, and it will probably give the name to his first volume of poems, already compiled and ready for the publishers. He has enough poems, however, for two good-sized volumes. "In a Southern Swamp" and "Through Woodland Ways" are two of his longer productions, and both are exquisite nature poems. "The Deathless Heart" and "The Carven Name" are also too long for reproduction here, but are fine stories in verse.

Not only in poetry but in prose has Mr. Hayne made an enviable reputation for himself. He has written a number of critical articles for The American and other periodicals, and his dialect sketches are delightful. His "Georgia Humorists" paid glowing and graceful tribute to Judge Longstreet, Colonel W. T. Thompson, Richard Malcomb Johnston and Joel Chandler Harris; and a sketch of Mrs. Margaret J. Preston rendered eloquent tribute to a most gifted Southern woman. An essay on "Some Famous English Lyrics," read before the