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