The conduct of Mr. Davis is severely criticised, for carrying on the war after he knew that resistance was hopeless he refused to make peace at a time when better terms of peace were offered by the North than could possibly have been got by carrying on the war. At Fortress Monro (where Mr. Davis is now confined), within three months of the time when General Lee surrendered and the South collapsed, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward offered to the Southern Commissioners appointed to treat with them, the following terms of peace. The Union to be restored, an amnesty and pardon to all who had borne arms, and the owners of slaves to receive 400,000,000 dollars, or £90,000,000 sterling, as the price of the freedom of the negroes. Whether it was thought that such an offer was an indication of weakness on the part of the North,-whether it was thought that reconciliation was not possible on any terms,-whether it was thought that war to the bitterest end was preferable to reconciliation, I know not: but these terms were refused, at a time when those who rejected them knew that victory was impossible; and the bitter end was deliberately preferred.

I had been curious to find whether in the heat of the war any good poetry had been written; and went to-day into a bookseller's shop to enquire for battle-songs or ballads. I found that Miss Emily Mason had collected and arranged a volume called

Southern Poems of the War.'

Those which follow seem to me to be some of the best in the book, and well worth quoting. The best of all is 'Maryland, my Maryland,' by James R. Randall, a poem often quoted in fragments, but of which I have never seen the whole before.

I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!

The Old Line bugle, fife and drum,
Maryland !

She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;

Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!

She breathes-she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland My Maryland!

The following poetic version of an incident in one of the Wilderness fights, by R. Thompson, formerly editor of the 'Southern Literary Messenger,' appeared first in a New Orleans magazine, The Crescent Monthly.'

LEE TO THE REAR.

Dawn of a pleasant morning in May

Broke through the Wilderness cool and gray,
While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds
Were carolling Mendelssohn's 'Songs without words.'

Far from the haunts of men remote,

The brook brawled on with a liquid note,
And nature, all tranquil and lovely, wore
The smile of the Spring, as in Eden of yore.

Southern Poems of the War.

Little by little as daylight increased,
And deepened the roseate flush in the East-
Little by little, did morning reveal
Two long glittering lines of steel;

Where two hundred thousand bayonets gleam,
Tipped with the light of the earliest beam,
And the faces are sullen and grim to see,
In the hostile armies of Grant and Lee.

All of a sudden ere rose the sun,
Pealed on the silence the opening gun-
A little white puff of smoke there came,
And anon the valley was wreathed in flame.

Down on the left of the rebel lines,

Where a breastwork stands in a copse of pines,
Before the rebels their ranks can form,
The Yankees have carried the place by storm.

Stars and Stripes o'er the salient wave,

Where many a hero has found a grave,

And the gallant Confederates strive in vain

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The ground they have drenched with their blood to regain!

Yet louder the thunder of battle roared—

Yet a deadlier fire on their columns poured

Slaughter infernal rode with despair,

Furies twain through the smoky air.

Not far off in the saddle there sat,

A gray-bearded man in a black slouched hat;
Not much moved by the fire was he,
Calm and resolute Robert Lee.

Quick and watchful, he kept his eye
On two bold rebel brigades close by-

Reserves, that were standing (and dying) at ease,
While the tempest of wrath toppled over the trees.