authorship, namely, that of the Romancer; and by his clear and accurate conception, and his faithful and vivid delineation of character, and by his mastery of the resources of narrative and dialogue, to which he brought those also of wit and satire, he proved himself as skilful a tiller of this semi-poetic precinct as he was new.

In 1861, Dr. Holmes issued a collection of his professional writings, under the name of Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science, with other Addresses and Essays.

During the late war, no voice of hard was oftener raised, surely none in more rousing, devout, patriotic, or, to the disloyal and craven, in more scathing utterance than that of Holmes through his War Lyrics. Here is one of the last class, "dedicated to the stay-at-home rangers":

THE SWEET LITTLE MAN.

Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles,
Each at his post to do all that he can,
Down among rebels and contraband chattels,
What are you doing, my sweet little man?

All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping,
All of them pressing to march with the van,
Far from the home where their sweethearts are weeping;
What are you waiting for, sweet little man?

You with the terrible war-like moustaches,

Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan,

You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes,
Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man?

Bring him the buttonless garment of woman!
Cover his face lest it freckle and tan;

Muster the Apron-string Guards on the Common,
That is the corps for the sweet little man.

Give him for escort a file of young misses,
Each of them armed with a deadly rattan ;
They shall defend him from laughter and hisses,
Aimed by low boys at the sweet little man.

All the fair maidens about him shall cluster,
Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan,
Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster,—
That is the crest for the sweet little man!

O, but the Apron-string Guards are the fellows! Drilling each day since our troubles began,— "Handle your walking-sticks!" "Shoulder umbrellas!" That is the style for the sweet little man.

Have we a nation to save? In the first place
Saving ourselves is the sensible plan.—

Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place
Where I can stand, says the sweet little man.

Catch me confiding my person with strangers!
Think how the cowardly Bull-Runners ran!
In the brigade of the Stay-at-home Rangers
Marches my corps, says the sweet little man.
Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers,

Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan;
Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers,
Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man!

Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens !
Sauve qui peut! Bridget, and right about! Ann ;—
Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens,
See him advancing, the sweet little man!

When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers
Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran,
While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers,
What will become of our sweet little man?

When the brown soldiers come back from the borders,
How will he look while his features they scan?
How will he feel when he gets marching orders,
Signed by his lady-love? sweet little man!

Fear not for him, though the rebels expect him,—
Life is too precious to shorten its span;
Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him,
Will she not fight for the sweet little man?

Now then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-home Ranger!
Blow the great fish-horn and beat the big pan!
First in the field that is farthest from danger,

Take your white-feather plume, sweet little man!

As a lyric of the rousing and patriotic order, the follow ing may well serve:

VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION.

'Tis midnight: through my troubled dream
Loud wails the tempest's cry;

Before the gale, with tattered sail,

A ship goes plunging by.

What name? Where bound?-The rocks around
Repeat the loud halloo.

The good ship, Union, Southward bound:

God help her and her crew!

And is the old flag flying still

That o'er our fathers flew,

With bands of white and rosy light,

And field of starry blue?

Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft

Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share?

O landsman, these are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!

Nay, ruler of the rebel deep,

What matters wind or wave?

The rocks that wreck your reeling deck

Will leave me naught to save!

O landsman, art thou false or true?
What sign hast thou to show?
The crimson stains from loyal veins
That hold my heart-blood's flow!
Enough! what more shall honor claim?
I know the sacred sign;

Above thy head our flag shall spread,
Our ocean path be thine!

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's cape
Lies low along her lee,

Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes
To lock the shore and sea.

No treason here! it cost too dear

To win this barren realm!

And true and free the hands must be
That hold the whaler's helm!

Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay
No Rebel cruiser scars;
Her waters feel no pirate's keel

That flaunts the fallen stars!

But watch the light on yonder height,—
Ay, pilot, have a care!

Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud
The capes of Delaware!

Say, pilot, what this fort may be,

Whose sentinels look down

From moated walls that show the sea
Their deep embrasures' frown?
The Rebel host claims all the coast,
But these are friends, we know,
Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil,"
And this is?-Fort Monroe!

The breakers roar,-how bears the shore?

The traitorous wreckers' hands

Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays

Along the Hatteras sands.

Ha! say not so! I see its glow!

Again the shoals display

The beacon light that shines by night,

The Union Stars by day!

The good ship flies to milder skies,
The wave more gently flows,

The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas
The breath of Beaufort's rose.

What fold is this the sweet winds kiss,
Fair-striped and many-starred,

Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls,
The twins of Beauregard?

What! heard you not Port Royal's doom?
How the black war-ships came

And turned the Beaufort's roses' bloom
To redder wreaths of fame?
How from Rebellion's broken reed
We saw his emblem fall,

As soon his cursed poison-weed
Shall drop from Sumter's wall?

On! on! Pulaski's iron hail

Falls harmless on Tybee!

Her topsails feel the freshening gale,
She strikes the open sea;

She rounds the point, she threads the keys
That guard the Land of Flowers,
And rides at last where firm and fast
Her own Gibraltar towers!

The good ship Union's voyage is o'er,
At anchor safe she swings,

And loud and clear with cheer on cheer
Her joyous welcome rings:
Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave,

It thunders on the shore,

One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation, evermore!

Our poet's pen is still active, employing itself now in prose, and now in verse, both grave and gay, or tender and caustic, as may be seen from month to month on the pages of our leading periodicals. His latest work is Mechanism in Thought and Morals.

"The muse of Holmes is a foe to humbug. . . . He clears the moral atmosphere of the morbid literary and other pretences afloat. People breathe freer for his verse. They shake the cobwebs out of the system, and keep up in