he has won for himself a high place among literary Americans; he is,
in fact, known throughout the States as 'The Songwriter of America;'
and we have the authority of Willis for stating that 'ninety-nine
people out of a hundred--take them as they come in the census--would
find more to admire in Morris's Songs than in the writings of any
other American poet.' Willis also tells us, as proof of the General's
popularity with those shrewd dollar-loving men, the publishers,
that 'he can, at any time, obtain fifty dollars for a song unread,
when the whole remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell
one to the same buyer for a single shilling!' He is the best-known
poet of the country by acclamation--not by criticism.

"Morris seems to have had juster notions of what was required in
a song than many who have achieved celebrity as song-writers in
England. 'The just office and notion of the modern song' has been
defined to be, the embodiment and expression in beauty of some
thought or sentiment--gay, pensive, moral, or sentimental--which
is as natural and appropriate in certain circumstances as the odor
to the flower. Its graceful purpose is to exhibit an incident in
the substance of an emotion, to communicate wisdom in the form of
sentiment. A song should be the embodiment of some general feeling,
and have reference to some season or occurrence.

"It is not a difficult thing to make words rhyme; some of the most
unimaginative intellects we ever knew could do so with surprising
facility. It is rare to find a sentimental miss or a lackadaisical
master who cannot accomplish this INTELLECTUAL feat, with the help
of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary. As for love, why, every one writes
about it now-a-days. There is such an abhorrence of the simple
Saxon--such an outrageous running after outlandish phraseology--that